The mission of Odysseus, the first private vehicle to land on the Moon, has officially ended: the lander did not survive the freezing lunar night and did not regain contact with the control center on Earth.
This was announced by the Texan company Intuitive Machines, with a post published on
The lander managed to land as expected near the Malapert A crater 300 kilometers from the south pole, despite a daring descent that caused it to break a 'leg' and tip over on its side.
For seven days Odysseus (affectionately called 'Odie') had managed to complete the tests of its payloads (six from NASA and six private) and to send photos and scientific data.
On February 29, Intuitive Machines had already announced that the mission had to be considered concluded, because the lander had not been designed to withstand the freezing lunar night that was approaching.
However, before the batteries were completely depleted, flight controllers had set Odie into a mode that would allow communications to resume if he managed to survive against all odds.
There was some hope, given that the Slim lander of the Japanese space agency Jaxa had also managed to awaken after two weeks of hibernation.
According to the technicians' calculations, the sun's rays would return to illuminate Odie after about three weeks and so on March 20th Intuitive Machines began listening for any signals from its lander.
After three days of silence, it was understood that Odysseus would never awaken again and that the IM-1 mission was officially over.
The next of Intuitive Machines' three lunar missions is expected to launch this year.
Meanwhile, the private company Astrobotic (which failed in its first moon landing with the Peregrine lander in January) is also working on a new mission with a larger lander, called Griffin, which will carry the Viper rover designed by NASA to search for traces of ice in view of the next manned missions of the Artemis program.
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