Odysseus Lunar Lander Completes Mission Despite Setbacks

Odysseus is the name of the first American spacecraft to land on the moon in 52 years. Find out how its mission succeeded despite enduring and overcoming some demanding challenges and setbacks.

I’ve been feeling old over the past couple of weeks. I kept hearing about the first US soft landing on the moon in 52 years.

It doesn’t seem like 50 years since Apollo 17 landed on the moon in December 1972, but figures don’t lie. It’s also hard to believe that NASA has taken so long to land another mission on Earth’s nearest neighbour.

Other countries, including Russia, China, India and Japan have landed uncrewed spacecraft on the moon, and the US has placed satellites in lunar orbit. This new lunar landing is also the first ever by any private business.

TEAM CALLED THE LANDER ODYSSEUS, ODY FOR SHORT

The team named the lander Odysseus, nicknamed “Ody” and it was built by the Houston-based commercial firm Intuitive Machines. It’s part of a NASA program called Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) and it’s also part of the Artemis crewed lunar landing program.

“This mission includes many firsts. This is the first time in over 50 years that an American organization has landed instruments on the surface of the Moon,” explained Dr. Joel Kearns, deputy associate administrator for exploration of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “This mission also provides evidence of the Commercial Lunar Payload Services model, that NASA can purchase the service of sending instruments to the Moon and receiving their data back.”

If Dr. Kearns’s praise of the private public partnership seems slightly muted, there’s a reason for that. The landing wasn’t exactly a roaring success. Ground crews forgot to turn Odysseus’s navigating lasers on prior to its February 15 launch from Cape Canaveral.

MISTAKE CAUGHT WHEN ODYSSEUS WAS ALREADY IN LUNAR ORBIT

By the time anybody caught the mistake, Odysseus was already orbiting the moon. Fortunately, NASA had included an experimental laser-navigation device that the flight controllers could press into service.

Mission control managed to land Odysseus within about 1.5 km of its intended target near the Malapert A crater. That’s the closest any spacecraft has ever come to landing on the moon’s south pole.

The pole is just 350 km from where Odysseus touched down. The site’s latitude is roughly 80˚ South, where the pole is 90˚.

SCIENTISTS ARE PARTICULARLY INTERESTED IN MOON’S SOUTH POLE

Scientists are particularly interested in the moon’s south pole because they believe there could be a substantial volume of frozen water there. It also has some distinctive geological features from which planetary scientists hope to learn more about how the moon formed and evolved.

Unfortunately, the spacecraft was moving too fast as it touched down, causing one of its six feet to catch on the lunar surface. As a result of the rough touchdown, the lander fell over on its side.

The body of the the 4-metre-tall lander blocked some of Odysseus’s antennas, while the solar panels wound up too close to the moon’s surface. The damage limited Odysseus’s power and communication systems.

DAMAGE LIMITED POWER AND COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS

Solar-powered lunar missions are tricky, because a month and a day are the same length of time on the moon. So, instruments have two weeks of daylight followed by two weeks of total darkness.

Although there were concerns that the mission would have to be cut short, NASA reports that its six instruments completed their planned seven days of operation.

The instruments measured the radio noise generated by the Earth and the Sun. They also managed to capture images of the plume of dust the landing generated, although not during the descent itself, as planned.

PERMANENT LOCATION MARKER FOR FUTURE STUDIES

Odysseus has also set up a Laser Retroflector Array on the lunar surface. It will provide another permanent location marker for studying the moon in the future.

Odysseus is a figure from Greek mythology. He’s the central character in Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey.

Scholars view the Odyssey as the prototype of the hero’s journey stories that make up so much of humanity’s culture. The original Odysseus also had his share of of setbacks, trials and tribulations.

Odysseus and the Hero’s Journey

That’s all part of the hero’s journey story form that we all enjoy both hearing and telling. The hero always endures unexpected challenges, and often experiences a major setback on the brink of success.

In the end, heroes do accomplish their goal, and they receive a reward for it. Then, they return to their community with an elixir, or some other vital remedy.

And Another Thing…

In the case of the spacecraft Odysseus, that elixir seems to be the valuable data the plucky little spacecraft managed to transmit while it was operational. I firmly believe that the drive behind humanity’s space exploration efforts is that everyone loves the hero’s journey story.

“The bottom line is every NASA instrument has met some level of their objectives, and we are very excited about that,” Sue Lederer, project scientist for CLPS concluded. “We all worked together and it’s the people who really made a difference and made sure we overcame challenges to this incredible success – and that is where we are at today, with successes for all of our instruments.”

We always have more to learn if we dare to know.

Learn more:

Sideways Moon Landing Cuts Mission Short

NASA Collects First Surface Science in Decades via Commercial Moon Mission

Artemis II Lunar Mission Postponed by NASA

Lunar Missions: Stories of Triumph and Disaster

Artemis I Returns Home After Successful Mission