Watch this space: Odysseus spacecraft faces challenges like its namesake, Sun throws tantrum

The landing happened a day after Odysseus reached lunar orbit, and that happened about a week after it was launched from Florida. It took several minutes after the nail-biting landing to establish communications with the spacecraft. Even then, the initial signal was faint, meaning that mission controllers were not sure about the exact location and position of the lander. 

On Feb. 22, 2024, Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus lunar lander captures a wide field of view image of Schomberger crater on the Moon approximately 125 miles (200 km) uprange from the intended landing site, at approximately about 6 miles (10 km) altitude. pic.twitter.com/b8EM4cOZbS

— Intuitive Machines (@Int_Machines) February 23, 2024

It is believed that the vehicle caught one of its six landing feet on a rock or something else on the lunar surface, causing it to tip over and rest on its side while propped up on a rock. But the lander “is stable near or at our intended landing site,” said Stephen Altemus, chief executive officer of Intuitive Machines.

Intuitive Machines gets evidence to suggest the lander is not fully horizontal from the amount of power that its solar array is generating, said Altemus to USA Today. The spacecraft’s landing near the south pole of the Moon was intentional — it would scout the area for the future Artemis 3 mission that will land astronauts in the region. 

But why did it tip over on its side? The thing is that Moon landings can be quite complicated affairs. Apart from Intuitive Machines and SpaceX, which launched the IM-1 mission, only four entities have ever managed to soft-land on the Moon — the national space agencies of the United States, the Soviet Union, China, India and Japan. 

But even Japan did not have complete success. In fact, a privately led mission by Tokyo-based ispace called Hakuto crashed onto the Moon in 2023. SLIM, or the Moon sniper mission, led by JAXA, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, managed to land on the moon in January. But even SLIM seems to have landed upside down. This should tell you that Odysseus has completed quite the feat even though it landed on its side. It may even make proud the Greek mythological hero it is named after.

I think that is enough talk about landing on the Moon, let’s bring our attention to the one thing that brings light into all of our lives — the Sun. The star at the centre of our planetary system on Thursday threw out an extremely powerful solar flare that was classified as an “X6.3-level.”  The X-class denoted the most intense flares, while the number that comes after it gives additional information about the solar flare’s strength, the higher the more. But it was the third X-class solar flare in a 24-hour period as the Sun.

All three of these solar flares came from AR3590, a giant sunspot. While the three flares were quite powerful, they are not expected to cause harm in any way. Solar flares are powerful bursts of energy that can potentially impact radio communications, electric power grids, navigation signals and even threaten astronauts in space, satellites and spacecraft.

The Sun emitted a strong solar flare on Feb. 22, 2024, peaking at 5:34 p.m. EST. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured an image of the event, which was classified as X6.3. https://t.co/ltkQU9Izqw pic.twitter.com/qSaPdaP4ij

— NASA Sun & Space (@NASASun) February 22, 2024

The three solar flares that happened may be harmless, but we can still expect more from the same sunspot because it has an unstable “Beta-gamma-delta” magnetic field with enough energy for more X-class explosions. 

Also, the Sun is around the period of solar maximum, which is when the star reaches the peak of its activity during the solar cycle,  which typically lasts around 11 years. The peak of Solar Cycle 25, which is currently going on, should happen sometime this year. We won’t really know that it happened until about six months later. But during the solar maximum, the Sun is expected to throw out more flares and CMEs at a more rapid pace.