It turned out that the device’s antennas were directed in the wrong direction due to side echoing, making data transfer extremely difficult. So there were no photos from him in the first few days after landing. Now the situation has changed, but it was only possible to obtain rather low resolution images. Still, developers hope the device will be able to transmit some scientific data.

The automatic lander “Odyssey” landed on February 23, 2024. But he put this aside for reasons that are not yet fully understood. Therefore, a unique situation has developed on the Moon: on the side facing us there is a “overturned two-world working device”. The Japanese SLIM stands “on its head”, while its American counterpart lies on its side.

In fact, according to reports from Intuitive Machines, the private space company that created Odyssey, things could have been much worse. The thing is that after ground tests the technician forgot to activate the fuse that makes the standard lasers of the descent control system operational. It was necessary to get rid of this with the help of improvisation, using the scientific payload already present on Selena’s surface instead of standard lasers.

That is why the developers did not carefully and slightly throw to the side before landing a special shooting module, which was supposed to film the descent on another celestial body from a third person for the first time in history. As a result, it is no longer entirely clear why the device fell sideways. The developers claim that everything has a phenomenal lateral speed of 3.2 kilometers per hour, linked to independent descent control. However, in the 20th century, numerous lunar probes landed normally despite extraordinary lateral speeds. Alternative possible explanations for the partial landing failure have been described previously.

However, company representatives have now shared new data that may clarify the problem. NASA’s artificial lunar satellite LRO succeeded in removing Odyssey from orbit. As a result, it turned out that the landing point was protected with high accuracy. The approach proceeded to the Malapert A crater at an altitude of 2579 meters to a point with coordinates of 80.13° south latitude and 1.44° east longitude.

The surface slope here is estimated to be 12 degrees. This is quite important, especially considering that it was not the most stable shape of the device (its 20th-century analogues had a much lower center of gravity). In such cases, even a small lateral velocity can actually cause a fall.

The question remains why the landing system chose such a slope. The likely answer is this: “Odyssey” had the first fully autonomous landing control system in the history of the moon landing. In other words, the decision on where to build the nest was made by an automatic system. By the way, in 1968, during the first landing of humans on the moon, the automatic selection of the landing point almost destroyed the lunar module with humans, choosing an area with large rocks for docking. Apparently something similar happened in “Odyssem” these days. However, there was no astronaut on board who could intervene in the controls and choose another landing site.

According to new data, Odyssey’s solar panels are at a more unfavorable angle to the Sun than expected. Therefore, its connection with the Earth will probably end today, February 27, 2024. The only images transmitted from the Moon during this period are of very low quality. Theoretically, there is a chance to wake up after a moonlit night, like the Japanese SLIM device that unexpectedly “came to life” recently. Unfortunately, this isn’t very likely since the Odyssey doesn’t have a radioisotope heater. This means that the electronics will cool down to at least -170 degrees Celsius at night, which may negatively affect its performance.

Although the general impression of the first landing of an American device on the moon in 52 years seems to be tarnished by the fact that it barely had time to transmit valuable data, in fact it is a great success. Only the Chinese have succeeded in attempting to land an automatic device on the moon in the 21st century. The first such attempt by the Israelis, Japanese, Indians, Russians (“Moon-25”) and Americans (“Peregrin”) ended in complete failure. The second attempt, in Japan and the United States, resulted in an out-of-state position of the device after landing, making scientific data extremely difficult to obtain. It is clear that even a simple, soft humming in a free-running position against this background is a significant achievement.

Fortunately, this decade the situation will change completely: Starship will launch a manned expedition to the moon. As Naked Science has previously written, humans’ abilities to study other celestial bodies radically exceed those of machines; Therefore, a manned landing will be able to provide incomparably important scientific data on controversial issues that directly affect the Moon’s suitability for space. human discovery.