‘Odysseus’ mission, first private lander on the Moon, concludes

Washington. The American company Intuitive Machines has ended the IM-1 mission, which brought a private lander contracted by NASA to the lunar surface for the first time.

First visit to the United States lunar surface since the end of the Apollo Program more than 50 years ago, the module Odysseus It arrived on February 21 at a location near the Malapert A crater in the lunar south pole region. Its payload included NASA instruments to prepare for its manned return to the Moon with the Artemis Program.

Although the module was left aside after landing, it was operational for seven days during which it was able to take advantage of solar energy.

As the mission of Odysseus Not intended to survive the harsh temperatures of the lunar night, before the batteries ran out, flight controllers placed the module in a configuration that would allow it to communicate with Earth if various systems exceeded the manufacturer’s expectations.

Intuitive Machines began to hear the activation signal again. Odysseus on March 20, when it was struck by enough sunlight to charge the lander’s power system and turn on its radio.

On March 23, flight controllers decided that their projections were correct and the aircraft’s power system Odysseus I wouldn’t complete another call home. “This confirms that Odysseus has permanently faded away after cementing its legacy in history as the first commercial lunar lander to land on the Moon,” Intuitive Machines said in a statement.