2024-02-28 07:18:58
Wednesday, February 28, 2024 9:10 AM – Jerusalem time
Arab Television Network
The Odysseus probe, affiliated with Intuitive Machines, has sent its first images from the far south of the Moon, where no spacecraft has ever landed. The private American company shared two images on Monday on the X platform.
The vehicle, which is more than four meters high, landed on the surface of the moon at 23:23 GMT on Thursday, in a precedent in the United States in more than 50 years, and it is also the first of its kind for a private company.
But problems and turns in the process, including in particular defects in the navigation system, complicated the final landing, and the probe found itself lying on one side instead of landing vertically.
The task is for private companies
“Odysseus continues to communicate with Nova Control flight path controllers from the surface of the moon,” Intuitive Machines said Monday.
The company published two photos on the X platform, one of the spacecraft landing and the other taken 35 seconds following it turned on one side.
This latest image reveals the lunar dust of Malabert Crater, the southernmost part of the Moon where no spacecraft has landed before.
The vehicle specifically transports scientific instruments from NASA, which wants to explore the south pole of the moon before sending its astronauts there, as part of the Artemis missions.
The US Space Agency decided to entrust this service to private companies, allowing them to conduct similar flights more frequently and for less money. But it would also stimulate the development of a lunar economy, capable of supporting a permanent human presence on the Moon, one of the goals of the Artemis program.
Astronomer and space mission expert Jonathan McDowell told Agence France-Presse that it is “a success with small flaws,” adding: “There are certainly matters that must be settled for future missions,” but the “NASA” project is moving in the right direction.
The Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) announced on Monday that the Japanese SLIM probe, which had been placed on the moon since the end of January, had been reactivated once more, following it also landed at a curved angle without its west-facing photovoltaic cells receiving sunlight.
For Jonathan McDowell, these two incidents might indicate that the upper parts of current probes are too heavy, and thus current-generation machines are more likely to capsize in low gravity.
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