Space and astronomy news
On February 15th, Intuitive Machines (IM) launched its first Nova-C class spacecraft from Kennedy Space Center in Florida atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. On February 22nd, the spacecraft – codenamed Odysseus (or “Odie”) – became the first American-built vehicle to soft-land on the lunar surface since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972. While the …
Continue reading “Lunar Night Permanently Ends the Odysseus Mission”
Update: On March 23, Intuitive Machines said that its Odysseus lander failed to re-establish contact after the lunar night, and took that as confirmation that the spacecraft has “permanently faded after cementing its legacy into history as the first commercial lunar lander to land on the moon.” Previously: Intuitive Machines says it’s putting its Odysseus …
Continue reading “Odysseus Is Shut Down After Sending Snapshots From Moon Landing”
Four days after Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus lander made an off-kilter touchdown on the moon, the mission team is releasing snapshots that were taken during its descent. The ultra-wide-angle images confirm that the lander is continuing to communicate with flight controllers, even though it’s lying in an awkward angle that limits how much data its antennas …
Continue reading “Odysseus Moon Lander Sends More Pictures — and We Know Where It Is”
The bad news is that Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus lander is tipped on its side after getting tripped up during its touchdown near the south pole of the moon. The good news? The plucky robotic spacecraft is nevertheless able to send back data. Mission managers at the Houston-based company and at NASA, which is paying $118 …
Continue reading “Odysseus Moon Lander Is Tipped Over But Still Sending Data”
Intuitive Machines‘ Odysseus lander made space history today — becoming the first commercial spacecraft to survive a descent to the moon, and the first U.S.-built spacecraft to do so since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972. But it wasn’t a trouble-free landing. Ground controllers had a hard time establishing contact with the robotic lander just …
Continue reading “Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus Lander Sends Faint Signal From the Moon”
Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus lander has beamed back a series of snapshots that were captured as it headed out from the Earth toward the moon, and one of the pictures features Australia front and center. The shots also show the second stage of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that launched the spacecraft, floating away as Odysseus …
Continue reading “Odysseus Moon Lander Sends Back Selfies With Earth in the Picture”
Now it’s Intuitive Machines’ turn to try making history with a robotic moon landing. Today’s launch of the Houston-based company’s Odysseus lander marks the first step in an eight-day journey that could lead to the first-ever soft landing of a commercial spacecraft on the moon. Odysseus would also be the first U.S.-built spacecraft to touch down safely on the …
Continue reading “Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus Lander Begins Its Moon Odyssey”
Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute Behold the battered terrain of the massive crater Odysseus in this new image from Cassini. Check out the cassinified image of the fractured surface When Voyager first imaged the huge Herschel Crater on Mimas, scientists could not help comparing the small and battered moon to the Death Star in George Lucas’ …
Continue reading “Look at the Size of that Thing! – A Close Look at Odysseus Crater”
On June 28 NASA’s Cassini spacecraft passed by Tethys, a 1,062-kilometer (662-mile) -wide moon of Saturn that’s made almost entirely of ice. Tethys is covered in craters of all sizes but by far the most dramatic of all is the enormous Odysseus crater, which spans an impressive 450 kilometers (280 miles) of the moon’s northern …
The search for life has to be one of the most talked about questions in science. The question is, what do you look for? The Odysseus lunar lander has recently detected signs of a technologically advanced civilisation…on Earth! The lander is equipped with an instrument called ROLSES which has probed the radio emissions from Earth …
Continue reading “Moon Lander Detects Technosignatures Coming from Earth”