During its descent toward the south polar region, one of the lander’s legs may have been caught on the surface, Intuitive Machines said.
Intuitive Machines’ private lander stumbled on its way down to the lunar surface and is possibly leaning over on a rock on the Moon. The vehicle is still operational and flight engineers are working to gather more data on its less than ideal position, the company said.
Odysseus landed on the Moon on Thursday, overcoming a glitch that jeopardized its ability to safely touch down. Although it made it to the surface, Odie’s landing was not so smooth, with the vehicle getting one of its legs caught, causing it to tip over on its side and possibly end up laying on a rock, Intuitive Machines CEO Steve Altemus revealed during a press conference on Friday.
“Yesterday we thought we were upright,” Altemus said. “When we worked through the night to get other telemetry data, we noticed that in this direction [pointing downwards] is where we’re seeing the tank residuals and so that’s what tells us with fairly certain terms the orientation of the vehicle.”
“It was a quite a spicy seven-day mission to get to the Moon,” Altemus added, and he is not wrong. Intuitive Machines was racing to the lunar surface to become the first private company to land on the Moon following a series of failures by others.
