A Intuitive Machines announced this Friday (23) that the first American probe to land on the Moon – Odysseus – has been deactivated . The mission lasted seven days as the probe did not survive the rigorous temperatures of the lunar night.
The module had been placed at rest after a week of mission and the expectation was to resume contact with the earth when the solar panels were recharged. However, flight controllers already detected that no communication would take place again.
On X, formerly Twitter, the company reported the failure. “On March 23, at 10:30 a.m. Central Standard Time, flight controllers decided that their projections were correct and that Odie’s power system would not make another call home,” he said.
“This confirms that 'Odie' has permanently disappeared after going down in history as the first commercial lunar module to land on the Moon,” he reported.
As previously announced on February 29th, our IM-1 mission ended seven days after landing, as Odysseus' mission was not intended to survive the harsh temperatures of the lunar night. Before its batteries were depleted, flight controllers tucked Odie into a configuration that…
— Intuitive Machines (@Int_Machines) March 23, 2024
Trajectory of the Odysseus space probe
IM-1, built by the company Intuitive Machines, was the first commercial spacecraft to land softly on the Moon. It was also the first American-made vehicle to land since the end of the manned Apollo program more than five decades ago.
The descent had tense moments among scientists, as Odysseus stuck one of its six landing legs on the lunar surface during the final landing. The module tipped over, resting on its side on a rock.
Carrying a suite of scientific instruments for NASA and several commercial customers, the vehicle is designed to operate for seven days on solar power before the Sun sets over the landing site. After that, Odysseus definitively lost contact with Earth.
However, in the meantime, the aircraft shared images and provided data from all instruments sent by NASA.
Source: CNN Brasil

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