Intuitive Machines has announced that it expects the lander to stop communications on the morning of Tuesday, February 27, cutting the mission short.
NASA and Intuitive Machines may have made history with the recent first U.S. lunar landing in more than 50 years, but it looks like the mission will come to an end much sooner than hoped. As the Odysseus lander came in for its descent last week it caught on the surface and tipped over onto its side. Now, Intuitive Machines has announced that it expects the lander to stop communications on the morning of Tuesday, February 27 — cutting the mission shorter than the week or more on the surface that was originally hoped for.
Intuitive Machines also released a low resolution image taken after the spacecraft pitched over, showing its view of the moon’s surface:
“After understanding the end-to-end communication requirements, Odysseus sent images from the lunar surface of its vertical descent to its Malapert A landing site, representing the furthest south any vehicle has been able to land on the Moon and establish communication with ground controllers,” the company wrote in an update.
