Moon Landing US Spacecraft Will Soon & Stop Expected Operation Time Reduced

Moon Landing US Spacecraft Will Soon & Stop Expected Operation Time Reduced from Up To 9 → 5 Days. The unmanned spacecraft of an American private company that landed on the moon is expected to stop working soon. Intuitive Machines, the company that landed the lunar probe ‘Odysseus’ (Nova-C) on the moon, said in a notice on its website on the 27th (local time), “Flight controllers are working to finally estimate the battery life of the lander.” “It can last up to 10 to 20 hours longer,” he said.

The company announced the previous day that flight controllers were expected to maintain communication with Odysseus until the morning of the 27th, suggesting that the spacecraft’s operating time could be much shorter than originally expected.

Previously, the company announced on the 23rd that Odysseus’ operating time on the lunar surface could range from a minimum of 7 days to a maximum of 9 days from the time of landing on the 22nd. However, according to the company’s explanation on this day, the spacecraft’s operating time will be shortened to about 5 days.

This is presumed to be because the spacecraft fell sideways during the moon landing and did not land perfectly as planned. The company announced at a press conference on the 23rd that when Odysseus landed on the moon, one foot of the aircraft tripped over a protruding part of the surface and was believed to be lying on its side.

Accordingly, it was explained that among the solar panels attached to the aircraft, only the part that is horizontal to the ground and towards the sky operates normally, and that solar charging may be difficult for vertical panels.

However, the company said that the mission was accomplished by efficiently transmitting data and images from NASA’s scientific equipment carried by Odysseus. They also released a close-up photo taken about 30 meters above the surface of Odysseus just before it landed on the moon.

Odysseus was launched on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on the 15th and entered lunar orbit on the 21st, six days later. The company announced that it attempted a lunar landing the next day, on the 22nd, and made a soft landing near crater Malapert A on the Moon’s South Pole at 5:24 p.m. (Central U.S. time) on the same day.

This excited Americans because it was the first American spacecraft to reach the moon in half a century since Apollo 17 in 1972 and the world’s first achievement by a private company. This mission by Odysseus was the second attempt by the ‘Civil Lunar Payload Transport Service’ (CLPS) in connection with NASA’s lunar exploration project ‘Artemis’.

NASA employs multiple private companies through the CLPS program to facilitate cost-effective unmanned lunar exploration. Odysseus was equipped with six NASA observation and exploration equipment, and NASA paid Intuitive Machines $118 million (approximately 157.3 billion won) in exchange for transporting it.

The stock price of Intuitive Machines, a Nasdaq-listed company, soared about 300% this year right after the announcement of the successful moon landing, but has continued to decline since it was revealed that it was not a perfect success.