US company Intuitive Machines first lunar lander touched down on the moon early Friday morning, marking the first American spacecraft to land on the lunar surface and putting the U.S. back on the moon for the first time since NASA’s famed Apollo moonwalker missions. The last US moon landing mission was in December 1972, when Apollo 17 touched down on the lunar surface for the final mission of the Apollo Programme.
The mission, codenamed IM-1, marks Intuitive Machines first robotic flight to the moon surface. The uncrewed lander, named Odysseus, landed at the lunar South Pole on Thursday at 6.23 p.m. Eastern Time , according to NASA.
Communication was lost during the landing, as expected. Communication was re-established at about 6:35 p.m. The 20 minutes or so of waiting was tense. “What I can confirm without a doubt is our equipment is on the surface of the moon and we are transmitting … congratulations IM team,” was the callout from Intuitive’s mission director, Tim Crain. Applause ensued. The company is now working on establishing full communications.
“Congratulations to everyone involved in this great and daring quest at Intuitive Machines, SpaceX, and right here at NASA,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. ”What a triumph. Odysseus has taken the moon.”
Photo credit Intuitive Machines
Odysseus descended from a moon-skimming orbit and guided itself toward the surface, searching for a relatively flat spot among all the cliffs and craters near the south pole. Intuitive Machines’ target was 186 miles shy of the south pole, around 80 degrees latitude and closer to the pole than any other spacecraft has come. The site is relatively flat, but surrounded by boulders, hills, cliffs and craters that could hold frozen water, a big part of the allure. The lander was programmed to pick, in real time, the safest touchdown spot near the so-called Malapert A crater.
The six-footed carbon fiber and titanium lander, powered by solar — towering 14 feet — carries six experiments for NASA and is intended to operate for a week, until the long lunar night.. The space agency gave the company $118 million to build and fly the lander, part of its effort to commercialize lunar deliveries ahead of the planned return of astronauts in a few years.
While giving updates on the situation, Intuitive Machines said that Odysseus spacecraft didn’t land upright. In a press conference with NASA Friday evening, the company revealed the lander is laying on its side after coming in a little faster than expected, likely catching its foot on the surface at the moment of landing. Fortunately, Odysseus is positioned in such a way that its solar panels are still getting enough light from the sun to keep it charged, and the team has been able to communicate with it. Pictures from the surface should be coming soon.
While the initial assessment was that Odysseus had landed properly, further analysis indicated otherwise. Intuitive Machines CEO and co-founder Steve Altemus said “stale telemetry” was to blame for the earlier reading.
All payloads except the one static art installation, though — Jeff Koons’ Moon Phases sculptures — are on the upturned side. The lander and its NASA science payloads have been collecting data from the journey, descent and landing, which the team will use to try and get a better understanding of what happened. But, all things considered, it seems to be doing well.
The team plans to eject the EagleCam, developed by students at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, so it can take a picture of the lander and its surroundings perhaps as soon as this weekend. It was supposed to be ejected during descent to capture the moment of landing, but issues on touchdown day prevented it from being released.
Photo credit Intuitive Machines
Once Odysseus was in lunar orbit and hours away from its landing attempt, the team discovered its laser range finders, which are key to its precision navigation, were not working — due entirely to human error. According to Altemus, someone forgot to flip a safety switch that would allow them to turn on, so they couldn’t. That realization was “like a punch in the stomach,” Altemus said, and they thought they could lose the mission.
The team was able to make a last-second adjustment on the fly by Intuitive Machines CTO and co-founder Tim Crain, who suggested they use one of the on-board NASA payloads instead to guide the descent, the Navigation Doppler LIDAR (NDL). In the end, Odysseus made it there alright with the team hoping to meet all the mission objectives.
The spacecraft was launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Thursday last week from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Intuitive Machines also became the first private business to pull off a lunar landing, a feat achieved by only five countries. Another NASA-backed company, Astrobiotic Technology's lunar lander suffered "critical" fuel loss and could not make it to the Moon and the lander crashed back to Earth.
Intuitive Machines’ entry is the latest in a series of landing attempts by countries and private outfits looking to explore the moon and, if possible, capitalize on it. Japan scored a lunar landing last month, joining earlier triumphs by Russia, U.S., China and India.
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