Ulysses, the American robotic spacecraft that landed on the moon last week, is likely to die in the next day or so.
Communications with the rover remain limited and will end when sunlight no longer shines on the solar panels, Intuitive Machines, the Houston-based company that built and operates Odysseus, said Monday morning.
The company also released images taken by the spacecraft as it descended, but none from the surface yet.
Odysseus is the first US spacecraft to land on the Moon since Apollo 17 in 1972 and the first private craft to land successfully in one piece. However, during the landing on Thursday afternoon, the roughly 14-foot-tall lander appeared to be traveling faster than planned and ended up flipped on its side.
As a result, its antennas are not pointed at Earth, significantly slowing the rate at which data is sent. While some of Ulysses’ solar panels were initially bathed in sunlight, they will soon be in shadow as the sun moves across the sky. This will starve the spaceship of energy and its batteries will die.
Odysseus is not designed to survive the two weeks of lunar night that follow, with temperatures dropping below minus-200 degrees Fahrenheit.
“Flight controllers plan to collect data until lander’s solar panels are no longer exposed to light,” Intuitive Machines posted on X. “Based on the position of the Earth and the Moon, we believe that flight controllers will continue to communicate with Ulysses until Tuesday morning.”
Flight controllers now know exactly where Ulysses sits on the moon. On Saturday, NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter snapped a photo as it passed over the landing site, revealing a spot that was not present in a previous image the orbiter had taken of the area.
Ulysses landed within about a mile of its target landing spot — more accurately than most previous craft. This feat was all the more impressive given that Intuitive Machines engineers had to patch the spacecraft’s software to bypass the malfunctioning lasers that were supposed to track the spacecraft’s altitude.
Intuitive Machines said Ulysses was also able to detect nine safe landing sites in the South Pole region, information that could prove useful for future missions as NASA and other space agencies try to explore that region. Frozen water in the shadows of craters there could one day provide critical resources for astronauts.
As Odysseus fades away, another lunar landing suddenly comes back to life. JAXA, the Japanese space agency, said Monday that its Smart Lander for Lunar Exploration, or SLIM, had revived. SLIM successfully landed on the moon in January. The failure of one of its two engines caused it to move sideways on landing and, like Odysseus, it flipped over in an unexpected orientation with its solar panels in the shade.
SLIM came to life a few days later when sunlight hit some of the panels, but went back to sleep as the lunar night descended.
Like Ulysses, the SLIM was not designed for the freezing cold.
But with the sun back in the sky, SLIM’s solar panels generated enough power to charge its batteries and make contact with Earth again. Temperatures were so high that communications stopped soon after, JAXA said.
However, JAXA said it plans to continue SLIM’s science studies of the surrounding terrain once temperatures cool.
While no one is counting on it, Odysseus may also wake up again after the sun rises at his landing spot in March.
