A spectacular photo shows the moon landing 'in extremis' of the Odysseus ship, which is still alive on the Moon

Teresa Guerrero Madrid

Madrid

Updated Wednesday, February 28, 2024-22:29

Odysseus' odyssey continues on the Moon.

The robotic spacecraft manufactured by the private American company

Intuitive Machines

landed successfully, albeit accidentally, on the moon on February 22 with six NASA instruments and remains operational on our satellite.

And this, despite the fact that the engineers of this mission, called IM-1, expected it to run out of power between Tuesday and Wednesday because the lander's solar panels were no longer exposed to light.

After arriving at the satellite six days ago, those responsible for

Intuitive Machines

explained that it could operate for up to a maximum of 10 days and despite their fears that it would turn off on Tuesday, February 27, Odiseo continued generating solar energy on the Moon today, Wednesday. allowing flight controllers to continue collecting the data.

NASA and Intuitive Machines offered a joint press conference this Wednesday to take stock of what this spacecraft has achieved so far, and show new images taken by the probe, the clearest we see.

Among them stands out a spectacular photo taken just before the moment of landing, even with the engine on and part of a leg broken.

An eventful landing on the moon that prevented it from landing in the planned position

, as reflected in another image in which the probe can be seen leaning to one side, having broken its left leg.

The probe, tilted to one side after one of its legs has brokenIntuitive Machines

The probe instrument responsible for guiding the spacecraft during the moon landing did not work.

However, collaboration with NASA engineers made it possible to solve the problem, since it was decided to test an experimental system with laser technology from the agency that allowed the moon landing, although not in the vertical position that had been planned.

The robot was supposed to descend vertically at a speed of one meter per second but it did so three times faster.

The fact that it has fallen on its side makes it difficult to send data and recharge energy to its panels, but in any case, the place where it is located will soon be in darkness, which will prevent them from charging.

At the latest, it would go into hibernation on Friday, but it will do so in the next few hours to try to make it operational again.

"We have carried out a very successful mission,"

said Steve Altemus, co-founder of Intuitive Machines, who surprised by stating that, although it is not the objective of this mission, they will try to wake the ship up again

"in two or three weeks." when it is exposed to sunlight again.

And this despite the fact that in principle the ship is not designed to withstand the freezing temperatures of lunar nights.

"We'll start listening when the sun rises again in the area he's in to see

if Oddie

wakes up from his nap," said Tim Crain, co-founder of Intuitive Machines.

Despite the setbacks suffered, NASA director Bill Nelson also considers this mission "a success."

And the probe that he has hired to take scientific instruments to the Moon (the first ones on our satellite since 1972) has earned a place in space history for several reasons.

Firstly, it was the first ship developed by a private company to successfully reach the Moon, which is still very complicated.

In addition, its landing zone,

the Malapert A crater,

about 300 km from the south pole, is the southernmost point on the Moon where a vehicle that has been able to establish communication with the Earth has landed.

In addition to the six NASA instruments - for whose transportation the agency has spent 113 million euros - the also called Nova-C module,

4.3 meters high and weighing 675 kilos,

carries six private instruments.

In search of ice on the Moon

The IM-1 mission

took off on February 15 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket

from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida (USA) and reached the lunar surface a week later.

As part of Odysseus's descent to the lunar surface, navigation algorithms identified nine safe landing sites within the south polar region chosen for the moon landing.

This is an area of ​​great interest because it has permanently shadowed regions that could be rich in resources, including ice that could be used to make fuel and provide oxygen and water to astronauts who go to the Moon in the future.

In fact, the area in which Odysseus works is one of those that NASA is considering for the astronauts of the future Artemis 3 mission to land on the moon, which although it was scheduled for 2025, has been postponed until September 2026.

So in the meantime, robots will have to clear the way.

Houston-based Intuitive Machines has two more lunar missions on its agenda, the first of which will include a robotic drill.

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The difficulty of reaching the Moon

Reaching the Moon remains very complicated, even for unmanned spacecraft, as also shown by the failures of several probes in recent years.

The Israeli Beresheet crashed in 2019, the Japanese Hakuto-R and the Russian Luna-25 failed in 2023 and last January, a failure in the propulsion system prevented the American private spacecraft Peregrine from reaching the Moon, so it was decided because it would self-destruct returning to Earth.

Last January, the Japanese SLIM probe achieved partial success because although it managed to land on the moon, it fell on its side, which has affected the planned mission by complicating its recharging with solar energy.

Although it did not succeed the first time, India made history with its Chandrayaan-3 probe by becoming the first country in August 2023 to land a spacecraft on the south pole of the Moon.