Engineers plan to put Odysseus "to sleep" on Wednesday evening as the lander ends its sixth day on the lunar surface, once solar power regeneration is no longer sufficient to keep it running and sending telemetry back to Earth, at around 8 p.m. EST (0100 GMT), Altemus said.

But he said flight controllers would seek to restart Odysseus in around three weeks, after the sun rises again over the vehicle's landing site in the moon's south pole region.

"We're confident that when the sun comes back up over Odysseus, that the solar arrays will energize and they'll send power. The real question is, are the batteries there to receive that power and pass it on," said Dr. Tim Crain, Intuitive Machines chief technology officer.