US Moon lander in ‘permanent’ sleep mode following historic landing

The American lander, which was the first private spaceship to land on the Moon, has reached its final demise after failing to “wake up,” according to the company responsible for its construction.

Houston-based Intuitive Machines said late Saturday that the lander, named Odysseus, had not called home this week when its solar panels were predicted to receive enough sunlight to turn on the radio.

The lander touched down at an oblique angle on February 22, but was still able to conduct several tests and send back photos before its mission was decided to end a week later when it entered a weeks-long lunar night.

Intuitive Machines had hoped it would “wake up” when it received sunlight again, as Japan’s SLIM spacecraft, which landed upside down in January, did last month.

The company said Saturday on X, earlier on Twitter, that after several days of waiting, operators had confirmed that the electrical system on the lander, named “Odie,” was “no longer calling home.”

“This confirms that Odie is permanently faded after cementing its legacy in history as the first commercial lander to land on the moon,” it said.

Intuitive Machines and NASA have hailed the mission as a success, even though it ran into several problems along the way, including a crash on landing.

It was also the first lunar landing by an American spacecraft since the manned Apollo 17 mission in 1972.

NASA plans to return astronauts to the Moon later this decade. It paid Intuitive Machines about $120 million for the mission as part of an initiative to delegate cargo missions to the private sector and stimulate the lunar economy.

Odysseus carried a suite of NASA instruments designed to improve scientific understanding of the Moon’s south pole, where the space agency plans to send astronauts as part of its Artemis program later this decade.

Intuitive Machines has two more Moon flights planned this year, both part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, which works in partnership with the private sector.

The United States, together with international partners, eventually wants to develop long-term habitats in the region, collect polar ice for drinking water – and produce rocket fuel for possible further trips to Mars.