Technologies

Odysseus Lunar Lander Sent a Farewell Photo of Earth: Now What?

All about the first US moon mission in more than 50 years. No astronauts, but this effort will help them return.

Goodbye, Odie. On Thursday, Houston-based space-exploration company Intuitive Machines bade farewell to Odysseus, the lunar lander that took the US to the moon for the first time in more than 50 years. The lander had been there for a week and will remain on the moon’s surface, inoperable but remembered as a historic achievement in the annals of lunar exploration.

«Before its power was depleted, Odysseus completed a fitting farewell transmission,» the company wrote in a tweet shared on Thursday. «Received today, this image from February 22nd showcases the crescent Earth in the backdrop, a subtle reminder of humanity’s presence in the universe. Goodnight, Odie. We hope to hear from you.»

Fisheye image showing, at the bottom, part of the lander; in the middle, the lunar surface with its distinctive craters; and up top, a bright white circle against the darkness of space, with a small bright crescent to its left.

Intuitive Machines successfully landed Odysseus on the moon’s surface Feb. 22, after a seven-day space trek by the craft. It’s the first time an American vehicle has been on the surface of the moon since Apollo 17 in 1972. But unlike the Apollo missions, which were entirely operated by NASA, this time the space agency hired the private company to send a lander to the moon.

The United States is the only country to ever put humans on the moon, but its focus shifted away from the lunar surface in the 1970s. In recent years, though, NASA has been planning a return, through its Artemis mission, which right now is scheduled to put boots back on the moon no earlier than September 2026 (several years after the original target date). Meanwhile, the space agency has been working with private companies like Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Horizon on a variety of missions, including through its Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative. The Odysseus mission was under CLPS auspices.

Here’s what to know.

Odysseus moon mission

The Odysseus mission was endorsed by NASA to collect scientific data from the moon’s surface. The lander, known internally as the Nova-C lander — and fondly to Intuitive employees as «Odie» — is about the size of a phone booth. It landed in the South Pole region of the moon called Malapert A at 6:24 p.m. ET on Feb. 22.

Odie was equipped with a host of instruments to investigate the lunar surface and radio waves and send photos back to the US, NASA said. The lander also featured a retroflector array that helped NASA identify its location and keep track of where to send other autonomous vehicles during future missions.

The launch and landing part of the mission lasted seven days, but it was fraught with drama after the Intuitive Machines team discovered that the lander’s range-finding system was inoperable and that the team needed to recode Odysseus to use a different range-finding system to pull off a safe landing. What’s worse, the team found that Odysseus was descending at a rate much faster than expected, increasing the likelihood of a crash. Luckily, that didn’t happen.

What to know about Intuitive Machines

Intuitive Machines is the first benefactor of the NASA Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, which the agency started in 2018. NASA researched whether to build and send a lunar lander of its own to the moon. But the space agency determined it would be cheaper, with potentially greater chances of success, to instead pay commercial companies to handle the task.

NASA paid Intuitive Machines $118 million to send Odysseus to the moon. The agency hoped to learn more about the lunar surface and where to eventually send humans back to the moon.

About the Odysseus technology

Odysseus carried several instruments for learning more about the moon and space.

En route to the moon, NASA instruments aboard the craft measured its consumption of cryogenic fuel, and while Odysseus was touching down, another instrument tested the dust the lander kicked up.

Once Odysseus was on the moon, additional technologies were used to evaluate the lunar surface. One, called the Lunar Node 1 Demonstrator, focused on autonomous navigation to show how future landers could traverse the surface. A Laser Retroflector Array conducted range-finding and distance measurements. And a radio wave instrument analyzed the moon’s surface radio waves to determine how’d they’d affect the work of humans conducting science there. Also, four cameras captured images of the lander’s environment.

Tipsy Odysseus

Intuitive Machines confirmed that Odysseus landed off-kilter after it apparently got one of its feet caught on something. The company now believes the lander is either tilted on a rock or lying on its side on the slope of a hill.

Despite the less-than-ideal positioning, Intuitive Machines was able to communicate with Odysseus and its sensors remained operational.

Short life span

Though Odysseus spent just a week on the lunar surface, that’s all it gets. The lander was slated to be operational for only nine to 10 days. After that, Intuitive Machines knew the sun would set on the landing site, and Odysseus’ radios and batteries can’t survive the extremely cold lunar nights.

What’s next

The Odysseus lander mission is just the first in a string of NASA missions that aim at eventually getting astronauts back to the moon. Like Odysseus, future landers will explore the lunar surface, scout ideal locations for landing astronauts, and perform scientific research.

For its part, Intuitive Machines isn’t done on the moon. The Odysseus mission may be over, but the company is already working on two other moon lander missions, slated to launch later this year.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for Aug. 20 #535

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for Aug. 20, No. 535.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s NYT Strands puzzle is a tough one. It helps to know a little something about different currencies, but there was one on there that was completely new to me. If you need hints and answers for today’s Strands puzzle, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: Mint condition

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: We’re in the money!

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

GULP, GLOB, LORE, DOLL, DOLE, DOLED, ROPE, ROPER, WALL

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

EURO, PESO, DOLLAR, POUND, RAND, RUPEE, KWANZA

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is GLOBALCURRENCY. To find it, look for the G that’s four letters to the right on the very top row, and wind down.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Wednesday, Aug. 20

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for Aug. 20.

Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword has a few challenging clues (4-Down threw me off), but it’s mostly OK. Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? Read on. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: Something worn by an infant or marathon runner
Answer: BIB

4A clue: Diversion on a long flight
Answer: MOVIE

6A clue: Phobos and Deimos, for Mars
Answer: MOONS

7A clue: Join highway traffic
Answer: MERGE

8A clue: Coloring for a camp shirt
Answer: DYE

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: Loudly voiced one’s disapproval
Answer: BOOED

2D clue: Material in walrus tusks
Answer: IVORY

3D clue: Experience four seasons in one day, say?
Answer: BINGE

4D clue: «Delicious!»
Answer: MMM

5D clue: Opposite of WNW
Answer: ESE

Technologies

See Six Planets Line Up in the Upcoming Planet Parade Tonight

Mark your calendar so you can catch Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus in the sky at the same time.

Fresh off the excitement of the Perseids meteor shower is a chance to see six planets lined up in the sky at once. These events, colloquially known as planet parades, only occur about once or twice a year, with the most recent one in February showing off all seven planets in our solar system at once. The next one will feature six of our closest celestial neighbors, and the event starts on Tuesday.

The six planets sharing the sky will be Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus. Mars will technically be there at the beginning of the night, but it dips below the horizon right after sunset, so it won’t be visible when all of the others are. Of those, Mercury, Venus and Jupiter will be visible to the naked eye, while the others will require high-powered binoculars or, preferably, a telescope.

Even though they’re spread out across the eastern and southern skies, the planets pair up with this one, making many of them pretty easy to find if you know what to look for. From east to west, here’s where each one will be.

Mercury — Eastern sky near the Cancer constellation. It’ll pop over the horizon just before sunrise, so you’ll have limited time to view it before the sun comes up and obfuscates it.
Venus — At the lower tip of the Gemini constellation in the eastern sky, a couple of hours before sunrise.
Jupiter — Will be near Venus, also in the Gemini constellation. It rises about an hour before Venus does.
Uranus — Will be near the upper tip of Taurus, rising after midnight. This one will require some magnification. If you see Pleiades, a cluster of stars at the upper tip of Taurus, you’ve gone too far upward.
Saturn and Neptune — These two are right next to each other and will be sitting between the Pisces and Cetus constellations in the southern skies. Neptune will be closer to Pisces while Saturn will be closer to Cetus.

Since it takes a long time for planets to move through the night sky, Aug. 20 is the starting point, and it’ll run through the rest of the month. Once September hits, Mercury will be too close to the sun, which will obscure it. From that point, there will be a five-planet parade for a while until Venus sinks below the horizon in early October. So, in all, you’ll have a chance to see at least five planets for over a month.

Will the planet parade be visible from my region?

Yes. We double checked Stellarium’s sky map from a variety of locations across the country, and everything above will be applicable everywhere in the continental US. Per Starwalk, the parade will also be visible in other parts of the world after the following dates for about the same amount of time (one to two weeks).

Abu Dhabi — Aug. 9
Athens, Beijing, Berlin, Tokyo and London — Aug. 10
Mumbai and Hong Kong — Aug. 11
Reykjavik, São Paulo and Sydney — Aug. 12

The planets will move based on date, though. The above locations are where they’ll be around Aug. 20, but if you’re looking a week or so later, they’ll be in the same general area, but will shift to a slightly different part of the sky.

Will I need any special equipment?

Yes. Neptune and Uranus, especially, will require some sort of magnification to see. We recommend a telescope, but high-powered binoculars may work if the sky is dark enough. Saturn is also difficult to see without magnification, so you’ll want it for that too. Jupiter, Venus, and Mercury should be visible on their own with the naked eye.

We also recommend taking a trip out to the country, as light pollution from suburbs and cities can make it even more difficult to see Neptune and Uranus. The moon will be out as well, which may make Venus, Jupiter, and Mercury harder to see. Other factors like weather may also make it more difficult to see all of them. If you’re lucky, you may see a few shooting stars at the tail end of Perseids as well.