Due to its final position on the lunar surface, Intuitive Machine’s IM-1 Nova-C “Odysseus” lander will cease operations within 24 hours. That will be two days earlier than planned. Still, IM said in an update this morning that they continue receiving data from the first American lunar lander to successfully touch down on the moon’s surface in over fifty years.

In a post on the company’s website and also on the X platform, Intuitive Machines said this morning that

Flight Controllers continue to communicate with Odysseus. This morning, Odysseus efficiently sent payload science data and imagery in furtherance of the Company’s mission objectives. Flight controllers are working on final determination of battery life on the lander, which may continue up to an additional 10-20 hours.

The images included here are the closest observations of any spaceflight mission to the south pole region of the Moon. Odysseus is quite the photographer, capturing this image approximately 30 meters above the lunar surface while his main engine throttled down more than 24,000 mph. Another day of exploration on the south pole region of the Moon. (27FEB2024 0835 CST)

After the lander is in the darkness of lunar night and its batteries are exhausted, the mission will end. That endpoint was originally scheduled for sometime Thursday, February 29th, but will occur early due to the angle and final resting position of Odysseus. Because it is on its side, rather than standing vertically, the amount and strength the lander receives to provide power through its solar panels is less than optimal.

As for the final results of the experiments aboard Odysseus, we will have to wait for them to be released by NASA and Intuitive Machines.

Next CLPS Missions

While IM-1 is near its end, NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program is really just getting started with planned lunar landings in support of both the Artemis program to return humans to the moon and also lunar science in general.

Firefly Aerospace

Blue Ghost M1, by Firefly Aerospace, is set to launch in the third quarter of this year aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9. “Firefly is excited and ready for our Blue Ghost Mission 1,” Trina Patterson, VP of Marketing and Communications told Talk of Titusville. “We got next!”

The 2 x 3.5 meter spacecraft’s landing target is Mare Crisium (Latin for “Sea of Crises”) a spot that is barely visible to observers with the naked eye. It will, according to Firefly, carry “ten NASA-sponsored payloads” and is designed to last “for an entire lunar day (about 14 Earth days), and well into the freezing lunar night.”

Intuitive Machines IM-2

In the fourth quarter of this year, Intuitive Machines will try again with IM-2, its second Nova-C lander. It will land in the southern polar region of the moon, this time carrying a drill (PRIME-1) combined with a mass spectrometer, to attempt harvesting ice from below the surface among other experiments. Like IM-1 and Firefly’s Blue Ghost M1, IM-2 is planned to fly aboard a Falcon 9 rocket on its initial journey to space.

Astrobotics, the Pennsylvania company that built the Peregrine lander that failed to reach the moon earlier this year, has its VIPER lander slated to head towards the lunar South Pole region later this year as well.

2025 will also see multiple CLPS missions to the lunar surface. Intuitive Machines, Firefly and Draper Laboratories all have missions penciled in for next year.