WASHINGTON — Intuitive Machines said Feb. 26 it expects to communicate with its Odysseus lunar lander, tipped on its side on the lunar surface, for only one more day, a much shorter timeline than previously expected.
In an update posted Feb. 26, the first since a Feb. 23 briefing where the company revealed the Nova-C lander likely tipped over while landing the previous day, the company released a low-resolution image taken by the spacecraft after landing. The image showed part of the lander and the shadow it cast on the surface, but few other details about the health and status of the lander. The company also released an image taken during the lander’s descent.
The company said the lander “continues to communicate with flight controllers” but did not disclose how much data that the spacecraft has returned beyond those images. At the Feb. 23 briefing, Intuitive Machines executives said they were working to reconfigure antennas to increase downlink rates but did not estimate what sort of data rates they expected.
“We expect to get most of the mission data down once we stabilize our configuration,” said Tim Crain, chief technology officer of Intuitive Machines, at the briefing.
“Flight controllers intend to collect data until the lander’s solar panels are no longer exposed to light. Based on Earth and Moon positioning, we believe flight controllers will continue to communicate with Odysseus until Tuesday morning,” or Feb. 27, the company stated.
That would be a shorter mission than originally planned. In its press kit issued before the launch of the IM-1 mission, Intuitive Machines stated that it expected the lander to operate for about seven days “before the lunar night sets on the south pole of the Moon, rendering Odysseus inoperable.” At the Feb. 23 briefing,…
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