Odysseus lander shown touching down on moon with broken leg in dramatic new pictures
Dramatic new images have been released of the Odysseus spacecraft landing on the moon.
The pictures, along with huge amounts of data, have been downloaded just hours before night falls at the lunar south pole and the lander’s batteries run out of power.
Intuitive Machines, the US company behind the mission, said it will now be possible to reconstruct the landing to understand how Odysseus came to rest on its side.
The Odysseus lander on its side with a crater around 500m away. Pic: Intuitive Machines/NASA
The company also revealed the lander could be revived in 2-3 weeks’ time when the sun rises again. The big unknown is whether the batteries and electronics can survive temperatures that dip below -200C (-328F).
“There are no eulogies planned. Only celebrations,” company co-founder Steve Altemus told a news conference in Houston, Texas.
The first of the new images, taken as the lander touched down, shows at least one of its legs had been shattered, with rocks and dust being blown away at high speed by the force of the rocket engine.
A second photo shows the lander on its side with the dark elliptical shape of a crater around 500m (1,640ft) away. Scientists believe the crater could be two billion years old.
Telemetry data shows Odysseus originally landed upright, but then toppled over on a slight slope.
In the low lunar gravity, it took around two seconds for it to come to rest, either on its fuel tank or a computer shelf on the outside of its structure.
A fisheye lens view of the Odysseus spacecraft on the moon. Pic: Intuitive Machines/NASA
Intuitive Machines was paid $118m (£94m) by NASA to take six scientific instruments to the moon.
All have sent back data, despite the lander’s position, and a navigation beacon is now operational that will help future landings.
But the laser navigation system that should have been used for the landing failed because a pin hadn’t been removed on the launch pad in Florida.
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Odysseus moon mission explained
“Clearly, it’s something we can fix next time,” Mr Altemus said.
The company has been under pressure to explain why the landing wasn’t perfect, when the far simpler Apollo spacecraft successfully touched down six times in the 1960s and 70s.
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Mr Altemus said: “We had a different kind of challenge. We were constrained on cost, with a fixed price contract from the government.
“We had a schedule to get this mission completed in the time it takes to get an undergraduate degree. This over-constrained environment forced innovation and this was our first flight of this vehicle.”
In a joint news conference, Intuitive Machines and NASA gave an upbeat assessment of the mission so far.
Dr Joel Kerans, of NASA, said the mission had been a “pathfinder, a first step to get back to the moon. There will be a lot of learning that comes out of it”.
Intuitive Machines is planning a second mission later this year that will carry a drill to hunt for water below the surface of the moon. It will also have a ‘space hopper’ that will fly into deeply shadowed craters where scientists believe there could be large amounts of ice.
Elon Musk has stepped up his attacks on Donald Trump’s sweeping tax and spending bill – weeks after a spectacular fallout between the world’s richest man and the US president.
Following weeks of relative silence after clashing with Mr Trump over his “big beautiful bill”, the billionaire vowed to unseat politicians who support it.
In a post on X, Musk said those who had campaigned on cutting spending but then backed the bill “should hang their heads in shame”.
He added: “And they will lose their primary next year if it is the last thing I do on this Earth.”
Musk also threatened to put their faces on a poster which said “liar” and “voted to increase America’s debt” by $5trn (£3.6trn).
The posts attracted a swift reply from Mr Trump, who claimed the billionaire “may get more subsidy than any human being in history” for his electric car business.
“Without subsidies, Elon would probably have to close up shop and head back home to South Africa,” he wrote on Truth Social.
“No more Rocket launches, Satellites, or Electric Car Production, and our Country would save a FORTUNE. Perhaps we should have DOGE take a good, hard, look at this? BIG MONEY TO BE SAVED!!!”
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Elon’s dad on the Musk-Trump bust-up
Musk spent at least $250m (£182m) supporting Mr Trump in his presidential campaign and then led the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which sacked about 120,000 federal employees.
He has argued the legislation would greatly increase the US national debt and wipe out the savings he claimed he achieved through DOGE.
As the Senate discussed the package, Musk called it “utterly insane and destructive”.
The Tesla and SpaceX CEO said the bill’s massive spending indicated “we live in a one-party country – the PORKY PIG PARTY!!”
“Time for a new political party that actually cares about the people,” he wrote.
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Musk previously said some of his social media posts during his dramatic fallout with Mr Trump “went too far”.
He had shared a series of posts on X, including one that described Mr Trump’s tax and spending bill as a “disgusting abomination”.
He also claimed, in a since-deleted post, that the president appeared in files relating to the disgraced paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.
But Musk later wrote: “I regret some of my posts about President @realDonaldTrump last week. They went too far.”
In response, the president told the New York Post: “I thought it was very nice that he did that.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be meeting Donald Trump next Monday, according to US officials.
The visit on 7 July comes after Mr Trump suggested it was possible a ceasefire in Gaza could be reached within a week.
On Sunday, he wrote on social media: “MAKE THE DEAL IN GAZA. GET THE HOSTAGES BACK!!!”
At least 60 people killed across Gaza on Monday, in what turned out to be some of the heaviest attacks in weeks.
Benjamin Netanyahu, left, with Donald Trump during a previous meeting. Pic: Reuters
According to the Hamas-run health ministry, 56,500 people have been killed in the 20-month war.
The visit by Mr Netanyahu to Washington has not been formally announced and the officials who said it would be going ahead spoke on condition of anonymity.
An Israeli official in Washington also confirmed the meeting next Monday.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the administration was in constant communication with the Israeli government.
She said Mr Trump viewed ending the war in Gaza and returning remaining hostages held by Hamas as a top priority.
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The war in Gaza broke out in retaliation for Hamas’ 7 October 2023 attacks on southern Israel that killed 1,200 people and saw a further 250 taken hostage.
An eight-week ceasefire was reached in the final days of Joe Biden’s US presidency, but Israel resumed the war in March after trying to get Hamas to accept new terms on next steps.
Talks between Israel and Hamas have stalled over whether the war should end as part of any ceasefire.
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