Odysseus moon lander mission ends 5 days early

This 'selfie' came from Odysseus on Wednesday as it reached the Moon's orbit

Odysseus - the first US spacecraft to land on the Moon in fifty years - is ending its mission early.

Intuitive Machines, a private US-based space company who made Odysseus, celebrated the spacecraft's successful touchdown last week.

The mission was meant to last up to ten days, but flight control engineers now say they are expecting to lose contact with the lander soon, cutting the mission short by five days.

In an update shared on their website and on social media, Intuitive Machines said they believe they will lose contact with the spacecraft by Tuesday morning.

Intuitive Machines celebrating the lander's touchdown

Why is the mission ending early?

An official from Intuitive Machines said that losing contact with the spacecraft was down to their own error.

In an attempt to save money, the company made the decision not to test their laser system before they launched Odysseus.

Intuitive Machines revealed on Friday that the lasers that help Odysseus navigate were not working.

This is because the lasers' safety switch was not unlocked before launch. This safety switch can only be unlocked by hand.

Mike Hansen, head of Intuitive Machine's navigation systems, said that testing the lasers before launch would have been "very time-consuming and very costly" and that they took a "risk" not to test them.

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What happens to Odysseus now?

Landing on the Moon is no easy task and the mission was already hampered by the spacecraft landing sideways.

Intuitive Machines believe that the reason Odysseus struggled to land as intended may be because of these navigation issues, which were discovered just hours before the moon lander was supposed to touchdown.

It used back-up lasers and computer programming to stick the landing, but it touched down much faster than expected.

Odysseus was able to send a picture of the Earth from space

And the way that Odysseus has landed means that it is unable to communicate as well with flight controllers on Earth.

"Flight controllers intend to collect data until the lander's solar panels are no longer exposed to light," Intuitive Machines wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Thankfully, the way Odysseus landed meant that the instruments sent by Nasa were still able to operate.

In a post on Nasa's website on Monday, the government-run space agency celebrated the first landing of a commercially-made spacecraft on the Moon, adding it was also the first time that "new NASA science instruments and technology demonstrations are operating on the Moon in more than 50 years."