EagleCam

EagleCam was a deployable CubeSat camera system designed to capture the lunar landing of the Nova-C Odysseus lander on the Moon. Designed and manufactured by staff and students working in the Space Technologies Laboratory at Embry–Riddle Aeronautical University, Daytona Beach, it was intended to deploy from Odysseus and take the first photographs of a spacecraft landing on the moon from a third-person perspective. It also planned to test an electrodynamic dust shield system in space for the first time and utilize a Wi-Fi connection to transmit data for the first time on the lunar surface.

Design and objectives
EagleCam's primary payload was its camera system, consisting of three fisheye-lens cameras which would take a total of nine images per second over six seconds as it was ejected from Odysseus shortly before landing. A fourth camera was included to test another one of EagleCam's payloads, an electrodynamic dust shield (EDS), created by the Swamp Works facility at Kennedy Space Center. The CubeSat was powered from a solar-powered battery with a lifetime of 30 minutes.

Had EagleCam been successful, photographs and data taken during the lunar landing of the Odysseus lander may have enabled a better understanding of the dynamics of lunar landings on the lunar regolith and rock surfaces in the vicinity of the Moon's south pole. EagleCam would've assisted in the objectives of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, such as gaining a better understanding of the local lunar surface features to assist with preparations for future manned and unmanned missions to the Moon's south pole, through NASA's Artemis program. However, while photos of Odysseus were never taken by EagleCam, it still recorded and transmitted other types of data to Intuitive Machines and the Space Technologies Lab via the IM-1 lander. Through EagleCam, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University became the world's first university to have a payload on the moon's surface solely developed by faculty and students.

A prototype of the EagleCam CubeSat flew onboard the Blue Origin NS-24 return-to-flight mission on December 19, 2023.

Mission summary


The CubeSat was piggybacked with the lander and launched on a Falcon 9 rocket to the Moon via a direct-intercept trajectory. This lunar landing took place on February 22, 2024. Just before landing, at approximately 30 m above the lunar surface, Odysseus was to eject this CubeSat. Once ejected, EagleCam was supposed to semi-hard land on the lunar surface somewhere near the lander at 10 m/s. As it descended to the surface EagleCam was planned to capture the first third-person images of a lunar landing. However, due to complications arising from a software patch which reconfigured the lander's sensors used during the final descent phase to the moon's surface, EagleCam was powered off and remained attached to Odysseus through landing. It was later ejected on February 28 but was a partial failure as it returned all types of data, except post IM-1 landing images that were the main aim of its mission. The EagleCam utilized a Wi-Fi connection with the Odysseus lander to relay its images back to Earth.

In March 2024, the EagleCam team was recognized by U.S. Senator Rick Scott in the Congressional Record of the United States Senate for their achievements.