Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus moon lander didn’t deploy camera during historic descent.
That epic touchdown came courtesy of Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus lander, which lowered itself onto the gray dirt about 190 miles (300 kilometers) from the moon’s south pole yesterday.
The strategy worked, helping Odysseus become the first private craft ever to soft-land on the moon. But it appears the navigation issue affected one of the other payloads aboard the lander — EagleCam, an instrument built by students at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU) that was designed to deploy from Odysseus about 100 feet (30 meters) above the lunar surface and photograph the craft’s touchdown from below.
„However, both the Intuitive Machines and EagleCam teams still plan to deploy EagleCam and capture images of the lander on the lunar surface as the mission continues,” he added. „The time of deployment is currently unknown.
