New photos from Odysseus moon lander released

Well we want to take you now over to the Johnson Space Center in Houston NASA and intuitive machine officials are discussing the odious moonlander and its current situation let's listen um so very excited about that what we've done in the process of this Mission though is we've fundamentally changed the economics of.

Landing on the moon and we've kicked open the door for a robust thriving CIS lunar economy in the future that's compelling and so I think this Clips experiment uh this first landing this success on the on the moon first time in 52 years um is really a point in history that we should celebrate as we move forward to uh.

Subsequent missions around the Moon we could not have done this alone this was truly an integrated Global effort and I don't think everybody was aware of that uh we returned to the Moon as a commercial company but we had multiple government agencies that we worked with we worked with NASA of course and and multiple.

Departments within NASA we worked with the FAA the FCC we worked with the Eastern range all of those to get off the ground we then had a whole series of international Partners uh that we used as not only our um uh luner Data Network antenna dishes on the ground but also in the supply chain we had Australia the United Kingdom Japan South.

Africa the United States dishes and Kat dishes Kat based out of Norway in India Singapore Dubai French Guyana and maius in India the supply chain I got to talk about a little bit from Canada uh MDA and canadensis Sweden AAC Clyde space provided that impeccable power system for us on the odys Lander from Spain where we got those uh Talis alenia.

Radios that gave us the ranging tones for orbit determination and the United States we leverage countless companies and their strengths in our domestic supply chain everyone deserves a thank you for allowing us as intuitive machines to take the lead and lead the United States back to the moon it's been a daunting.

Journey um we were met with over 11 critical Mission challenges uh and it was the the only way to get through that was with the people the people of intuitive machines who demonstrated resilience and perseverance and triumphed in solving the engineering challenges that were put for forth uh put forward in front of.

Them um the whole way through the mission all the way up until our projected end at the at this evening you know the challenges came from people ask you know why was this so hard and why does it take so much effort if we've returned to the Moon after 50 years why and we did it 50 years ago why is this so.

Hard what we had was a different kind of challenge we were constrained in cost with a fixed price performance contract from the government we had a schedule where we were to get this Mission completed within the time it takes to get an undergraduate degree we had a technical challenge to land Softly on the South Pole region of the.

Moon this over constrained environment forced innovation and this was our first flight of this vehicle which had never been flown before in space let alone been designed and developed and this was a task that was given formerly to nation states and Sovereign governments and we did it as a commercial.

Company we did this by building a robust lunar program that could launch and land more than one time that is in place the intutive machines operations team team has been practiced now like no other and can handle the challenges that are thrown for flying in space we communicated in a in a way that not everybody was necessarily satisfied.

With we learned in our Communications but what we tried to do was diagnose a problem and and develop an approach and then communicate what our approach was going to be and how we were going to solve it that was going to improve or maintain od's Health along the way and I think we did that and we did that effectively and I'm proud of the.

Communications team for what they have done you know data flows out of uh Mission Control in a very sporadic way whether Communications are happening in Rapid Pace in near real time or they're delayed over the weekend because we're struggling with getting our Telemetry down into these big dishes around the world but every time we reported out the.

Status of where we were um we've assembled the best and brightest in the company that I can imagine and trying to create a business that's a National Asset for the United States and hopefully feed the lessons learns into im2 and im3 and our subsequent missions I have a few very fascinating images for you um that I can talk through now if.

You look up at the teleprompter um this is a picture of Odi on the surface of the Moon touching down with its engine firing you see here the the landing gear pieces broken off there on the left of the image the landing gear did what it was supposed to do and protect the Lander as it landed on the surface the engine plume interaction.

With the surface surface gives us this excellent view of how the ejecta the regolith moves away from the plume interaction there's scientific information in that data right there what you don't see in this picture is that we landed our navigation system landed us with precision and landed us Softly on the moon the shock absorbers.

Took the load and the Lander now tilted over gently and we think it's about 30° and uh communicating um all the way down uh uh to Earth and I think Tim is going to give you an estimate of how much data we've actually brought down there's a little image in the center of the white patch uh on this that's an American flag I want to highlight that that American.

Flag was a donation by NASA and is from 1970 in the Apollo program and it was a certified piece of flight hardware and we took that American flag and we proudly put it on uh odsis and carried it to the moon uh like it should have been done 52 years ago so I'm really proud of that next picture this picture shows the fishey.

Lens uh kind of view of and all of the data that's within the how we're able to give you the images we have um all the data is there in this wide angle view uh next next image and here we are how OD conducted the brilliant Six-Day mission on the surface you see the the gold foil blanket is the helium tank you see that.

We've uh we tilted over slightly still more upright than we initially thought we did land upright we captured data and then we tilted over slowly in about 2 seconds and came to rest either on the opposite helium tank or a computer shelf and were able to communicate get all six payloads data back plus all the commercial payloads and continue to.

Transmit um as we go forward um brilliant uh performance by uh small lunar lander and a brilliant uh commercial company called intuitive machines thank you ner thank you Steve we'll now hand it over to Joel Joel you're up Hey thank you ner so first again I I want to again congratulate intuitive machines for this mission of.

Many first uh we mentioned many of them on um on Friday but I want to talk again about the fact that this is the first time in the 21st century that an organization the United States has landed equipment on the surface of the Moon and we're getting data back from that equipment engineering and science data it's an exciting time to be on day.

Six of this new era in the 21st century now a soft touchdown on the moon is a great accomplishment uh this morning in response to a question our administrator of NASA uh Senator Bill Nelson in response to a question about does NASA consider this mission to be successful said yes this mission is a Pathfinder you can think of it as a flight test a.

First step to get back to the Moon a Pathfinder both for the more complicated and sophisticated robotic science Landing missions that'll occur in the future and a Pathfinder to get data for taking our human explorers back to the Moon and to faes on the moon that humans have never been before under Artemis this also provides evidence for the.

First time that the commercial lunar payload Services model that is that NASA could go out and purchase as a service taking equipment to the surface of the Moon and getting data back from the surface of the Moon can work and it's the first time that we now have that evidence um it's also a soft landing at a extreme lower latitude on the moon uh.

80° South in the near the South Pole region and I want to point out why this is so different because as others have said we get questions periodically that since Americans did land on the moon in the 1960s and we haven't been back in a long time until setting on this new road of getting Science and Technology on the moon why is it really that difficult and.

I want to remind folks that and again what you have to do to get down to the surface of the Moon since there's no air on the moon is in effect you have to ride a rocket all the way from the fast speed of being being up in orbit all the way to practically no speed at a predetermined point on the surface at a predetermined elevation that you're.

Trying to get to and in effect you have to bring you have to bring down with you on the rocket all the fuel you need to slow down so this is a very very complex undertaking and when we established the first set of Clips Landings the first initial ones internally at Nasa we discussed that the major goal was to soft l and and get some amount of data.

Back from our scientific engineering investigations and we can clearly see that we did get our car go to the surface of the Moon and we have gotten data back as project scientists a su letterer will talk about in a few minutes um there's also a lot of learning that comes out of this attempt First Flight of this new type of vehicle.

Nova say um much of which um Steve timma already touched on in his introduction but also a lot of learning about orbit uh determination and use of commercial communication systems around the world um and I would like to point out that um there were a number of organizations as Steve said that intuitive machines reached out to to get either Assistance.

Or advice or information during the mission we talked list uh Friday about uh intuitive machines use of the onboard payload payload the all right we've been listening to NASA officials as well as the CEO of a company called intuitive machines a private company NASA ped with to get uh laying the groundwork for a potential uh.

Man or woman flight in the future but the aircraft uh the spacecraft failed intuitive machine CEO Steve Ultima spoke about still this was a global effort to get OD as they described on the moon as many countries tried to make it happen and this still was the first commercial attempt to get spacecraft to the moon and uh the first.

American attempt to get back to the Moon in some five decades so they said there still value from what they found absolutely I love that you pointed out that he called him Odie because so many people and not just the folks in that press conference but have thought about that that lunar Landing device and with great deal of affection the CEO said.

That the company built a lunar lander program that can work again in the future Ultimus uh mentioned that there was an American flag from Apollo uh in 1972 that was on the spacecraft when it landed on the moon we're going to dive deeper into this conversation with Derek Pitts he's a chief astronomer at the Franklin Institute and always a great.

Person to talk to so Derek um let's talk a little bit about Odie because I loved uh Ultimus saying that they kicked open the door that this should be something that's celebrated for people who haven't been following the Saga and it does seem like a saga living up to the name of odyusa Lander uh talk to us about um how he was able to recorrect uh course and.

Then successfully land only to tip over yeah this is a really interesting Mission uh and exciting because of all of these different things that it has been able to do as you said kicking open the doors to allowing us to get back to the Moon in so many different ways you know first of all there's the technology that's involved in this I mean Landing.

Anything on the moon is not easy space flight in general is a real challenge all the way around so getting a spacecraft down to the surface of the Moon uh as well as they did is certainly to be applauded uh because of the technological challenge I'll I'll I'll mention right off the top that one of the big technological challenges that no.

One has spoken of yet is being able to control the rocket engine so that you can bring it down to the surface on a soft Landing nobody's mentioned that but being able to throttle the engine so it can do that that's amazing in and of itself and then to get it down onto the surface of the Moon essentially a soft Landing even though it then tipped over.

You know that's still a great thing to have happen because the spacecraft is still still operating essentially and that will operate for another few hours and send back tremendous amounts of data so all of these different things put together being able to first of all do this as an independent company is incredibly important because of one.

Simple fact and that is that what intuitive machines is doing is they're building a business model that can work going forward into the future and that's been one of the biggest challenges for any independent providers and that's what we heard uh NASA representative mentioned is that this and alluding to what the NASA administrator Bill NE.

Nelson responded when was asked is this a failure he said well no it's not a failure because this is really a Pathfinder Mission it sets the groundwork for future attempts and there is data even as we speak still being sent back to Earth from the Moon I think we have some of the pictures that they shared during this press conference.

Explain to us the value of these images the value of the data coming back now despite the mission not going as planned so what we're seeing in this photograph is we're seeing the landing gear of the spacecraft essentially as it's touching down on the surface and the blurry background that you see underneath it that's the lunar regolith underneath the.

Spacecraft being blasted away from the zone as the spacecraft comes down with the rocket engine still operating and so that picture has in has within it a tremendous amount of data about how deep the regolith is on the surface what force is being you know is being applied to push it at this rate of speed and at the uh at the amount of distance that.

It's going out and all of that combined with the data about the spacecraft settling on the surface goes back into designing future spacecraft to be able to do this even more gently and more accurately in the future not to mention the targeting system that allows them to range find their way essentially feel their way down to the surface as they.

Descend so that they can descend softly uh so You' mentioned some of the ways in which this was historic the gentle Landing the targeting systems changing uh the economics of landing on the moon one of the other things that I read was that this is the furthest south that any lunar lander has been able to successfully broadcast then back here to.

Earth any data why is the South Pole so important as we're talking about the future of space exploration I think this is one of the biggest pieces about the future of exploration on the surface of the Moon the idea is that at the South Pole there are craters that uh essentially don't get any sunlight ever because of their.

Position at the South Pole and because of that there is frozen water that has built up in these craters an ice Frost that could be harvested uh so that astronauts in that region you know building uh research bases in that region of the Moon can Harvest that ice to create water to create oxygen to create Rocket Fuel a number of the.

Essential ingredients for having a su a successful research station established so this is doing work planning for the future of uh of human exploration on the surface of the Moon by being able to make use of the resources that are already there so that's really the big exciting thing about this is that if we can make make use of that region of the.

Moon that's going to put us way ahead in the game of being able to explore the moon successfully Steve timus uh the president of intuitive machines mentioned something like that as he discussed you know the just reviewing what happened and he mentioned im2 im3 these future potential missions to the Moon what's the latest on that when.

Might we see that and and how long would it take to figure out how to get back um after now receiving as much data from this device as long as possible well NASA and intuitive machines have plans for additional spacecraft to be launched later this year and next year and the years after that and you have to think of this as a.

System in which we're building up our capability to uh have a successful research base on the moon so you'll see more and more of these missions coming along not just from intuitive machines but from other independent commercial providers as well so think of it this way NASA is figuring out ways to Outsource a lot of the work that it.

Needs to do on the moon to establish these research bases so that they can do a number of things drive down the cost of doing this drive down or at least spread out the risk of doing this so that they can have these systems built up in the future to support future research on the surface of the Moon so we'll see more of these kinds of.

Expeditions these Pathfinder missions coming in the next couple of years until we actually return astronauts to the surface of the Moon for Extended Stays of weeks or even months at a time in the next five years or so good job little Odie all really exciting stuff I was going to say rock on OD Derek Fitz it's great to have your Insight on this I.

Also appreciate you joining us from space I know it's expens to get up there it's cold pleasure you did it for CBS news thank you so much great to have you with us thank you thank you

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