New images share unprecedented view of how Odysseus spacecraft landed on the moon
(CNN) — Remarkable new images from the Odysseus mission capture the spacecraft — the first US-made vehicle to make a soft touchdown on the moon in five decades — in the moments directly after its harrowing and historic touchdown on the lunar surface.
Posted — UpdatedIntuitive Machines, the Houston-based company that developed the Odysseus lander, shared the photos at a news briefing Wednesday. During the news conference, officials from Intuitive Machines and NASA — which paid to fly science instruments on the mission — also confirmed that all of Odysseus’ instruments are transmitting data, leading them to declare the mission successful despite significant setbacks during the spacecraft’s dramatic descent to the surface.
Mission controllers were celebrating the success, cheering “what a magnificent job that robust, lucky lander did all the way to the moon,” said Intuitive Machines CEO Steve Altemus.
The spacecraft was still transmitting data from its resting place near the moon’s south pole as of Wednesday afternoon.
Odysseus experienced navigation issues in the hours leading up to its touchdown on the moon’s surface last Thursday. And when the vehicle reached its destination — landing in an eroded crater near the largely unexplored lunar south pole — it tripped on the surface, leaving the spacecraft leaning on its side, Intuitive Machines revealed Friday.
As of NASA and Intuitive Machines’ last news briefing on Friday, the state of spacecraft and all of its science instruments was not yet clear.
But officials revealed Wednesday that Odysseus has beaten the odds — delivering data from all six NASA instruments as well as payloads added on by commercial companies, including a dual-camera observatory added on board by Toronto-based company Canadensys Aerospace.
Many of the instruments on board Odysseus were designed to collect information as the spacecraft was in transit to the moon and during the crucial moments of descent toward the lunar surface. NASA’s Navigation Doppler Lidar, or NDL, for example, went from being an experimental instrument taking a test flight to becoming a critical mission-saving instrument in the final hours before Odysseus made its touchdown.
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