Intuitive Machines' historic private moon mission comes to an end

Mike Wall
Mon, March 25, 2024 

A fisheye photo showing parts of a gold and silver lunar lander in the foreground, with the moon's gray dirt and the bright sun in the background.


The first successful private moon-landing mission is officially over.

On Feb. 22, Intuitive Machines' Odysseus spacecraft, affectionately known as Odie, touched down near the lunar south pole, becoming the first commercial vehicle ever to ace a moon landing.

The solar-powered Odie operated on the lunar surface for seven Earth days, then went silent after the sun went down at its landing site. This was the expected length of the lander's surface mission, but Intuitive Machines held out some hope that Odie would wake up when sunlight bathed its solar arrays once more. After all, Japan's SLIM moon lander bounced back from its lunar slumber late last month.


Over the weekend, however, we learned that Odie's eyes will remain closed for good.

Related: Goodnight, Odysseus. Intuitive Machines' private moon lander goes offline — but could it rise again?

"Intuitive Machines started listening for Odie's wake-up signal on March 20, when we projected enough sunlight would potentially charge the lander's power system and turn on its radio," the Houston-based company said in a post on X on Saturday (March 23).

"As of March 23rd at 1030 A.M. Central Standard Time, flight controllers decided their projections were correct, and Odie's power system would not complete another call home. This confirms that Odie has permanently faded after cementing its legacy into history as the first commercial lunar lander to land on the moon," Intuitive Machines added in another Saturday post.

The "projections" in that latter post are the company's original prelaunch predictions — that Odie's electronics would not survive the extreme cold of the long lunar night. (The moon's day-night cycle takes nearly a month to complete, so nighttime on Earth's nearest neighbor lasts about two weeks.)


a silver and gold spacecraft can be seen at the bottom of a fish eye view of the moon's surface

Odysseus launched on Feb. 15 atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, carrying 12 payloads toward the moon. Six were NASA experiments that the agency put on board via a $118 million contract from its Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, or CLPS, and six were private payloads belonging to a variety of customers.

The 14.1-foot-tall (4.3 meters) Odie reached lunar orbit on Feb. 21 and landed a day later near Malapert A, a crater about 190 miles (300 kilometers) from the moon's south pole.

That landing turned out to be dramatic. Odie came in a bit faster than it was supposed to, thanks to a problem with its laser rangefinders, and ended up breaking one or more of its six landing legs during the touchdown. As a result, the spacecraft tipped over onto its side.

But Odie could still function in its supine state. NASA got data back from all five of its active payloads, agency officials said after the historic touchdown. (The sixth NASA payload is a passive laser reflector array that's designed to help other lunar spacecraft navigate.)

"The bottom line is that every payload has met some level of their objective, and we're very excited about that," Sue Lederer, CLPS project scientist at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, said during a press briefing on Feb. 28.

closeup photo of a gold and silver spacecraft on the moon.

NASA and Intuitive Machines see Odie's landing as the first of many pulled off by private spacecraft in the coming years. For example, Intuitive Machines' CLPS contract calls for three moon landings, and the company hopes to launch its second mission later this year.

Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic also got a CLPS deal. Its first effort, with a lander called Peregrine, ended in failure this past January when the craft suffered a propellant leak shortly after deploying from its rocket.

Astrobotic is working on its next CLPS mission, which will use a bigger lander called Griffin to put NASA's ice-hunting VIPER rover down near the lunar south pole. VIPER is currently scheduled to launch late this year atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.

US Moon lander 'permanently' asleep after historic landing: company

AFP
Sun, March 24, 2024

This image obtained on February 27, 2024 from Intuitive Machines was taken shortly before the vehicle landed (Handout)


An uncrewed American lander that became the first private spaceship on the Moon has met its ultimate end after failing to "wake up," the company that built it said.

Houston-based Intuitive Machines said late Saturday that the lander, named Odysseus, had not phoned home this week when its solar panels were projected to receive enough sunlight to turn on its radio.

The lander touched down at a wonky angle on February 22, but was still able to complete several tests and send back photos before its mission was determined to have ended a week later, as it entered a weeks-long lunar night.

Intuitive Machines had hoped that it might "wake up" once it received sunlight again, as Japan's SLIM spaceship -- which landed upside down in January -- did last month.

The company said Saturday on X, formerly Twitter, that after several days of waiting, operators had confirmed that the power system of the lander, nicknamed "Odie," would "not complete another call home."

"This confirms that Odie has permanently faded after cementing its legacy into history as the first commercial lunar lander to land on the Moon," it said.

The mission has been hailed as a success by Intuitive Machines and NASA, even as it ran into multiple problems along the way, including the tip-over at landing.

It was also the first lunar touchdown by an American spaceship since the manned Apollo 17 mission in 1972.

NASA is planning to return astronauts to the Moon later this decade. It paid Intuitive Machines around $120 million for the mission as part of an initiative to delegate cargo missions to the private sector and stimulate a lunar economy.

Odysseus carried a suite of NASA instruments designed to improve scientific understanding of the lunar south pole, where the space agency plans to send astronauts under its Artemis program later this decade.

Intuitive Machines has two more Moon missions planned this year, both part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, which works with the private sector.

The United States, along with international partners, wants to eventually develop long-term habitats in the region, harvesting polar ice for drinking water -- and to produce rocket fuel for eventual onward voyages to Mars.

bur-des/bbk