The company’s announcement marks a rocky end to a mission that survived a rollover of the lander and the failure of a critical navigation system due to human error. When the rover landed on the Moon on February 22, it used NASA’s experimental navigation system incorporated into the rover’s software as it approached the moon’s surface.
However, it turned out that the reason for this was due to human miscalculation. The Nova-C class landing navigation system relied on lasers to estimate speed, heading and position. Unfortunately, since these lasers pose a danger to technicians’ eyes before being launched, the system could not be programmed to activate automatically. Instead, a physical switch had to be flipped before starting.
Despite these setbacks, mission engineers managed to maintain communication with Odysseus and obtained new images from the lander. Some were taken as it approached the Moon and show nine safe potential landing sites, as well as an area of permanently darkened craters that may contain ice and other resources.
Source: Ferra
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