Odysseus Moon Lander 'Tipped Over On Touchdown'

On Thursday, the Odysseus Moon lander made history by becoming the first ever privately built and operated robot to complete a soft lunar touchdown. While the lander is 'alive and well,' the CEO of Houston-based Intuitive Machines, which built and flew the lander, said it tipped over during its final descent, coming up to rest propped up sideways on a rock. The BBC reports: Its owner, Texan firm Intuitive Machines, says Odysseus has plenty of power and is communicating with Earth. Controllers are trying to retrieve pictures from the robot. Steve Altemus, the CEO and co-founder of IM, said it wasn't totally clear what happened but the data suggested the robot caught a foot on the surface and then fell because it still had some lateral motion at the moment of landing. All the scientific instruments that planned to take observations on the Moon are on the side of Odysseus that should still allow them to do some work. The only payload likely on the 'wrong side' of the lander, pointing down at the lunar surface, is an art project.

'We're hopeful to get pictures and really do an assessment of the structure and assessment of all the external equipment,' Mr Altemus told reporters.
'So far, we have quite a bit of operational capability even though we're tipped over. And so that's really exciting for us, and we are continuing the surface operations mission as a result of it.' The robot had been directed to a cratered terrain near the Moon's south pole, and the IM team believes it got very close to the targeted site - perhaps within a couple of kilometers. A US space agency satellite called the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will search for Odysseus in the coming days.

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