In February, NASA celebrated the arrival of the first US-made lander on the Moon in more than 50 years, an achievement that helps pave the way for the return of American astronauts to the lunar surface later this decade. But the clock was ticking for Intuitive Machines' Odysseus spacecraft after touching down on February 22 near the Moon's south pole.
Each day and night on the Moon lasts two weeks. When the Sun sets, a solar-powered lunar lander like Odysseus is starved of energy. Temperatures during the lunar night plummet, bottoming out at around minus 280° Fahrenheit (minus 173° Celsius).
Over the course of two weeks, these cold temperatures can damage sensitive spacecraft equipment, killing a lander even if it could start generating power again at lunar sunrise. Surviving the night requires heat and electricity, and NASA officials say nuclear power is one of the most attractive solutions to this problem.
Freezing to death
“We do anticipate having to deploy nuclear systems on the lunar surface," said Jay Jenkins, program executive for NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program.
"Honestly, it’s not unrealistic that we’ll want to do be able to do this within five years or less. We are starting to buy payloads that are meant for investigations that go beyond one lunar day," Jenkins said during a Nuclear Regulatory Commission conference earlier this month.
The commercial Odysseus lander was part of CLPS. Intuitive Machines had a $118 million contract with NASA to deliver science and tech demo payloads to the lunar surface.
As expected, Intuitive Machines declared the end of the Odysseus mission last month when ground teams confirmed that the lander did not make it through the night. Just in case it woke up, engineers tried listening for a signal from the spacecraft, nicknamed Odie, but didn't hear back.