Odysseus Lander Achieves “Dawn of Radio Astronomy From the Moon”

Odysseus, a lunar lander, successfully touched down near the Moon’s South Pole on February 22, despite technical difficulties. The ROLSES experiment recorded Earth’s radio waves, potentially aiding in the search for extraterrestrial life. Future missions are planned to continue this research.

On February 22, a lunar lander named Odysseus touched down near the Moon’s South Pole and popped out four antennas to record radio waves around the surface. It was a moment University of Colorado Boulder astrophysicist Jack Burns hails as the “dawn of radio astronomy from the Moon.”

It was a major achievement for the tenacious lander, which was built by the Houston-based company Intuitive Machines and had to overcome a series of technical difficulties to make it to the lunar surface. Burns is co-investigator on the radio experiment that flew aboard Odysseus called Radio wave Observations at the Lunar Surface of the photo Electron Sheath (ROLSES).