The Odyssey module didn’t wake up after a long moonlit night, but it went down in history forever.
The Odyssey lander of the US company Intuitive Machines could not wake up after a long night on the Moon, although its solar panels began to receive sufficient sunlight. Thus ends the first American mission to Earth’s moon in 50 years, Space writes.
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The Odyssey lander became the first private vehicle to land on the Moon, albeit not entirely softly, on February 23 of this year. . During landing, due to a malfunction in the navigation system, the device could not land normally and one of the support supports broke.
The module worked on the Moon for only 7 days and then stopped sending signals to Earth due to the onset of the long lunar night and the lack of sunlight, resulting in its batteries stopping charging. But Intuitive Machines hoped that the module would still wake up with the start of the day on the Moon. For example, as I wrote before FocusThis also happened to the Japanese SLIM module, which managed to survive the night on the Moon. But the Odyssey closed forever, and that was the end of the historic mission of the United States.
Intuitive Machines said they tried to capture the signal from the module on March 20 because the batteries should have been charged enough to start the radio communication system at that time. But on March 23, mission controllers learned that the module had completed its indefinite operation and would never send signals again. However, the device forever went down in history as the first of its kind created by a private company that managed to land on the lunar surface. In fact, the module itself was not designed to withstand the low temperatures on a cold night on the Moon, but there was hope.
The Odyssey lander carried 12 payloads to the Moon, including experimental NASA vehicles and cargo from private customers. All NASA instruments sent data back to Earth that would aid in further exploration of the Moon.
Intuitive Machines plans to send at least 2 more landing modules to the Moon within the scope of cooperation with NASA. One of the missions is planned to be launched into space later this year.
The Odyssey mission was the second successful mission to land on the lunar surface in recent memory. In August 2023, India’s landing module Chandrayaan-3 was successful. As I already wrote Focus A recent study revealed that the vehicle did the almost impossible during landing.
It is also worth remembering that another American private lander, Peregrine, failed to land on the Moon in January of this year due to a fuel leak shortly after the spacewalk, as written earlier. Focus.
As I already wrote FocusThe Parker solar probe became the first device capable of touching the Sun, and in 4 years our star tried to kill it with plasma 28 times.
Source: Focus
Ashley Fitzgerald is an accomplished journalist in the field of technology. She currently works as a writer at 24 news breaker. With a deep understanding of the latest technology developments, Ashley’s writing provides readers with insightful analysis and unique perspectives on the industry.