Altemus showed how engineers believe the spacecraft, named Odysseus, made its descent based on the most recent telemetry data using a miniature replica of the lander.

According to Altemus, "the vehicle is stable near or at our intended landing site." "We are commanding the spacecraft and downloading data from its buffers."

The business, Intuitive Machines, became the first to send a privately manufactured spacecraft to the moon when it verified yesterday that the lander landed at 5:24 p.m. Central Time. However, many information regarding the vehicle's condition remained unknown. The fact that EagleCam, the onboard camera, was turned off upon landing is one of the contributing factors in this. Engineers were forced to use other data in the absence of pictures to ascertain the lander's orientation after landing.

The group is still attempting to reconstruct the series of incidents leading up to the historic landing. Altemus claims that the corporation relied on "stale" telemetry data when it initially believed Odysseus was upright. The information that is now available indicates that the spacecraft was vertical at touchdown, but because it was also flying horizontally and a little too quickly, it is probable that one of its legs broke or hooked on something, causing it to topple over.

The good news is that the majority of the payloads on board are not located on the downward-facing panel, which is the only one that is exempt from lunar surface operations. Numerous significant subsystems, like as the solar arrays powering the spacecraft and its payloads, are operating smoothly, the business was able to certify.

The mission controllers at Intuitive Machines used rapid thinking and a lot of very fortunate luck to make the mission successful.

Odysseus's intended lunar orbital insertion maneuver on Wednesday night put it in an elliptical orbit around the moon, which is when the navigational problems began. That proved to be highly "fortuitous," according to Altemus, as it prompted mission controllers to attempt using "laser rangefinders," a navigational component, far sooner than intended (the lasers were supposed to be engaged during the final descent phase).

The corporation discovered the morning of landing that the lasers were not functioning after analyzing the data. This was due to the fact that they neglected to flip off a physical safety switch on the component while it was still on the ground.

These lasers control vital landing parameters including height and horizontal velocity; if they hadn't worked, Odysseus may have met the same fate as countless previous landers and crashed on the ground. After weighing a few choices, the business chose to employ a NASA doppler lidar payload intended as a demonstration of technology. To provide themselves with more time to load software patches and reset the lander's guidance, navigation, and control system, they ordered Odysseus to circle the moon for an extra two hours.

It was an incredible save at the final second. During the press conference, NASA's deputy associate administrator for the space technology mission directorate, Prasun Desai, stated that the technology was supposed to reach a technology readiness level (TRL) of 6, but that TRL 9, the highest level of readiness, has been reached thanks to the technology's successful implementation onboard Odysseus.

When there was a technical problem yesterday, he added, "all that hard work paid off because the teams decided it was best to try to do the switch and rely on this tech demonstration." "The technology operated flawlessly, as far as we can tell from the telemetry received, which is limited until we receive all the data back."