Odysseus' mission will be shortened after the lunar lander's side landing Science and technology news

Engineers expect to lose contact with the US special Odysseus lunar lander on Tuesday, cutting the mission short after its side landing last week.

The Odysseus probe will cut short its lunar mission today, and engineers expect it to lose contact with the lander this morning.

The craft It landed on the roof last week The “nail-biting” landing marked the arrival of the first privately owned lander on the Moon and the first from the United States since 1972.

Odysseus's journey was supposed to last between a week and ten days, but is now scheduled to end five days after landing on its side on the moon, and it remains to be seen how much scientific data might be lost.

Intuitive machines – with which the probe was launched NASA – Admitted human error and abandonment of testing may have contributed to shortened lifespan.

“There were definitely things we could have done to actually test and launch it,” said Mike Hansen, the company's head of navigation systems.

“It was very time consuming and expensive.”

The failure of the spacecraft's laser-guided rangefinders in flight before landing near the Moon's south pole forced Odysseus into an additional orbit to give controllers time to work on an improvised landing.

The malfunction – identified a few hours before landing – occurred because the company's engineers did not open the laser safety switch before launch, which can only be disabled by hand.

Hansen, who designed the software “patch” that solved the problem, said the company has not yet determined whether the ad navigation solution — which used an experimental system provided by NASA on the lander — may have been a factor in the spacecraft's malfunction. Side landing.

Odysseus got stuck on the bottom of one of his six legs as he landed on the moon's uneven surface and flipped over, apparently resting on a rock, the company said Friday.

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This limited the Sun's exposure to its solar panels, and meant that its antennas were pointed toward the moon's surface, preventing some communications.

Intuitive Machines said it spent nearly $100 million (£78 million) on the lander and received $118 million (£93 million) from NASA.