Early on Friday, it was reported that Odysseus succeeded in landing. It is the first time in more than 50 years that a US spacecraft landed on the surface of the Moon.
American the ball lander Odysseus has probably fallen on its side due to a broken landing gear.
Early on Friday, it was reported that Odysseus succeeded in landing. It is the first time in more than 50 years that a US spacecraft landed on the surface of the Moon.
CEO of Intuitive Manchines, the company that sent the lander to the Moon Stephen Althemus told the reporters that the crash happened carefully, so at this stage there is no information whether the lander was badly damaged.
The landing became a suspense drama in the first place, because a technical problem was detected in the ship as it approached the surface of the Moon. The ship had to resort to an experimental laser landing system developed by NASA. Odysseus transports supplies and instruments of the US space agency NASA to the Moon, among other things. It is a new project of NASA, with which it is delegating cargo operations to space to the private sector.
Now the company says that the problems were apparently caused by a rock that the ship hit during its landing. According to Altemus, the lander’s solar panels are still generating power and he considered it possible that the ship is still collecting data.
Due to technical problems encountered during the landing, the external camera it was carrying was not launched from Odysseus. However, the purpose now is to trigger the camera in order to get footage of the ship from outside.
Company still told on Friday morning Finnish time that the ship is in a vertical position and is sending data from the Moon.
It is the first time since the 17th Apollo mission in 1972 that a US lunar rover has successfully landed on the lunar surface.
The ship landed in the Malapert A crater, which is about 300 kilometers from the Moon’s south pole, where, according to research, there is water in the form of ice. Nasa hopes that the ice can be used in its future Artemis programs that will take astronauts to the moon. The water could potentially be used both as drinking water for astronauts and as fuel for ships heading to Mars.