A privately-owned spacecraft, designed to land on the moon, is anticipated to cease operations on Tuesday due to an unsuccessful landing near the southern pole of the moon.

Intuitive Machines, the Houston company that built and flew the spacecraft, said Monday it will continue to collect data until sunlight no longer shines on the solar panels. Based on the position of Earth and the moon, officials expect that to happen Tuesday morning. That’s two to three days short of the week or so that NASA and other customers had been counting on.

The spacecraft, known as Odysseus, is the initial American probe to successfully touch down on the moon in over half a century. It is carrying out experiments for NASA, its primary sponsor. However, during its landing on Thursday, it descended too quickly and one of its six legs got caught on the surface, resulting in a tumble, according to officials from the company.

Odysseus successfully landed within 1.5 kilometers of its planned location near the Malapert A crater, approximately 300 kilometers from the southern region of the moon, as confirmed by images captured by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter during its flyover.

“The photographs taken by the LRO from a height of 90 kilometers are the sole images depicting the lander on the ground, however it appears only as a small dot in the low-quality pictures. An attempt by Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University to release a camera in order to capture images of the lander during descent was cancelled just before touchdown due to a navigation problem.”

NASA reports that the lander successfully landed in a shallow and worn-out crater with a slope of 12 degrees. This marks the nearest approach of a spacecraft to the southern pole, which is of particular interest due to the possibility of frozen water in the shaded craters found there.

In order to bring astronauts to this area within the next several years, NASA awarded Intuitive Machines a sum of $118 million to transport six different experiments to the surface. Other individuals or organizations also had their own objects included on the mission.

Unfortunately, the 4.3-meter Odysseus did not land in an upright position and instead came down on its side. This made communication with Earth difficult as some of the antennas were obstructed by the toppled lander. The remaining antennas were also located close to the ground, leading to inconsistent communication. The solar panels were also closer to the surface than expected due to the hilly terrain, which was less than ideal. To add to the challenges, Odysseus only had a limited time of one week to function on the surface before the extended lunar night began.

Since the 1960s, moon landings have only been successfully achieved by the U.S., Russia, China, India, and Japan, and only the U.S. has successfully landed with crews. Recently, Japan’s lander also landed on the wrong side of the moon.

Intuitive Machines achieved the remarkable feat of becoming the first private company to be included in the prestigious group, despite a slightly off-kilter landing. Another American company, Astrobotic Technology, attempted the same in the previous month but was unable to reach the moon due to a fuel leakage.

Intuitive Machines came very close to failure. The ground teams forgot to activate the lander’s navigating lasers before liftoff on February 15 from Florida. This mistake was not found until Odysseus was already orbiting the moon, causing flight controllers to use a NASA laser-navigating device that was only intended for experimental purposes.

Rewording: The use of NASA’s test lasers successfully directed Odysseus to a precise landing, making it the first U.S. spacecraft to land on the moon since the Apollo program.

Twelve Apollo astronauts walked on the moon from 1969 through 1972. While NASA went on to put an occasional satellite around the moon, the U.S. did not launch another moon-landing mission until last month. Astrobotic’s failed flight was the first under NASA’s program to promote commercial deliveries to the moon.

Both Intuitive Machines and Astrobotic have been awarded contracts by NASA to carry out future lunar missions.

Source: voanews.com