AFP Washington
Washington
Updated Sunday, March 24, 2024-9:35 p.m.
Odysseus,
the first private American probe to land on the
Moon,
has turned off permanently after about a month on the Earth satellite, announced the manufacturing company
Intuitive Machines.
The device had been
put to rest
at the end of its main mission, after seven days on the Moon, but Intuitive Machines engineers planned to try to turn it back on at the end of the lunar night, once the sun had reappeared.
In the end, it did not turn on again, the company explained on Saturday in its X network account, where it stated: "Odie (nickname of the probe)
has been turned off forever."
It was highly unlikely that the ship's batteries would survive
the bitter cold of the lunar night.
On February 22, Odysseus became the first private company probe to land on the Moon and the first American spacecraft to do so since the end of the
Apollo
program in 1972.
However, it remained tilted on the lunar surface, in the
South Pole region,
after a rough descent due to a failure in its navigation system.
Some of its solar panels continued to function and supply it with power.
Odysseus transmitted photos and scientific data, particularly those collected by NASA instruments
on
board.
Both NASA and Intuitive Machines have described the probe's stay on the Moon as a success.