After announcing its near end the day before, the American company Intuitive Machines declared on Wednesday that its Odysseus probe, the first private spacecraft to have successfully landed on the Moon last week, was ultimately still active for the moment.
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Odysseus “continues to generate solar power on the Moon, allowing flight controllers to continue collecting data from the Moon’s south pole region,” Intuitive Machines wrote on X.
However, the company declared on Tuesday morning that, according to its analyses, the Odysseus batteries would probably only last 10 to 20 hours.
Intuitive Machines teams are “analyzing new solar charging data and using the additional time to maximize actions advancing future exploration,” she added Wednesday.
A press conference is planned for the beginning of the afternoon, which should provide more details on this latest twist in an eventful mission.
The probe is powered by electricity thanks to its solar panels, but these are not optimally exposed to sunlight, because the device did not land vertically as planned. He instead rolled over, ending up lying on one side.
Despite this, the mission “is a success from NASA’s point of view,” Bill Nelson, the head of the American space agency, told the press on Wednesday.
This mission, although private, was largely set up thanks to funding from NASA, which commissioned Intuitive Machines to transport six scientific instruments to the Moon, a contract worth $118 million.
“We are in the sixth day of what was planned to be an eight-day mission,” said Bill Nelson. “And we receive data from our six instruments.”
From the outset, Odysseus’s ground operations were expected to be only short-lived before night settled over the lunar south pole.
NASA wants to explore this region before sending its astronauts there as part of its Artemis missions.
Odysseus is the first American spacecraft to have landed on the moon since the end of the Apollo missions, more than 50 years ago. It is also the probe that has landed furthest south on the Moon.
This region is of particular interest to the great powers because it could contain large quantities of water in the form of ice. This water could potentially be harnessed to make fuel for spacecraft or support the needs of astronauts on site.
