Intuitive Machines: Odysseus Moon lander 'tipped over on touchdown'

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: BBC

2 hours ago


The Odysseus Moon lander is likely lying on its side with its head resting against a rock.

The US spacecraft, which made history on Thursday by becoming the first ever privately built and operated robot to complete a soft lunar touchdown, is otherwise in good condition. Its owner, Texan firm Intuitive Machines, says Odysseus has plenty of power and is communicating with Earth. Controllers are trying to retrieve pictures from the robot.

Steve Altemus, the CEO and co-founder of IM, said it wasn't totally clear what happened but the data suggested the robot caught a foot on the surface and then fell because it still had some lateral motion at the moment of landing. All the scientific instruments that planned to take observations on the Moon are on the side of Odysseus that should still allow them to do some work. The only payload likely on the "wrong side" of the lander, pointing down at the lunar surface, is an art project.

"We're hopeful to get pictures and really do an assessment of the structure and assessment of all the external equipment," Mr Altemus told reporters. "So far, we have quite a bit of operational capability even though we're tipped over. And so that's really exciting for us, and we are continuing the surface operations mission as a result of it."

Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-68388695

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Odysseus took this photo on approach some 10km above the surface

Had watched a replay of the briefing and apparently as it was about to land and was slowly descending while still moving horizontally, they believe one of the landing struts might have snagged the surface causing it to tip over onto an elevated part of the surface or a rock (apparently in a way that still allowed the solar array to face the sun and not completely blocking other instruments). They want to eject an "eagle cam" out of it so it goes some distance away enough to get a good pic of it and hopefully send that image back.

[bucolic_frolic]

1. All that money and no shock absorbers in the legs?

Seriously, they didn't have this gamed out? Center of gravity, braking or lack thereof, not landing flat. They should have consulted AI for engineering.

[BumRushDaShow]

3. They chose to land it near the craggy, bumpy, pock-marked south pole

all trying to keep the antenna line-of-sight to Earth and the solar panels facing the sun. Definitely risky!

[Ptah]

9. Stupid engineers!

[Igel]

22. Not what's described.

It was still moving sideways as it approached the surface. A leg, they say, must have caught on something sticking up from the surface. A force at a distance from a pivot point ... That's an unbalanced torque.

This caused it to flip.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

23. How do you know "no shock absorbers"? Of course they "gamed it out"

You can't protect against every eventuality or you would have a much heavier craft (unlaunchable) and no science or experiments.

It's not like the choice is no protection or 100% all contigencies protection. You have some engineering information that there are no shock absorbers?

Shock absorbers are for downward deceleration at the moment of landing. It seems that there was horizontal motion and those shock absorbers wouldn't help. There probably was some engineering to mitigate sideways forces.

Engineering is about economic tradeoffs. You could make cars 100% safe by keeping airbags constantly inflated, but nobody would buy them. You could make cars as crash resistant as a tank, but you couldn't get them to run for long at 65 mph due to weight.

Have YOU ever fallen? You have leg muscles for shock absorbers. You never fell over? Congratulations.

[brush]

2. Sorry to hear that. Seems they could put a wide enough base on these craft...

so they wouldn't tip over, or a mechanism to right themselves.

[BumRushDaShow]

4. Given they used a 3D-printed engine

they were trying to do this in a cost-effective (relatively "cheap" ) manner to make it attractive for private companies to purchase for their own use. So they probably weren't looking at bells and whistles at this point. The fuel mix was unique though so they got to test that.

[LastDemocratInSC]

12. Wider base might be better but it does have 6 legs. Enough if it doesn't trip on a rock.

[prodigitalson]

5. a sasquatch kicked it over

[RockRaven]

6. I saw elsewhere (Reddit) that they failed to manually remove a safety

on some rangefinder sensor prior to launch, which contributed to the excess lateral movement. If true, very "oops."

[BumRushDaShow]

8. I heard the discussion of that

and it seemed more of a "had the safety been removed then the sensor could have been deployed to do a correction" type of thing vs having been a cause per se.

[ThoughtCriminal]

7. The lander looked a little top-heavy to me

But without knowing where the center of gravity is, I'm not sure.

Just my Kerbal experience at work here.

[EndlessWire]

10. They have every right to be proud

of their accomplishment. This was welcome relief to the usual news, and I am grateful for it.

But, technically, they crashed on landing. They just didn't disintegrate, and apparently can salvage some of the mission. This is a learning experience. The next one will be better.

I noticed the spokespeople wearing little uniform shirts, and this added to my sense of "Star Trek Beginnings." They are trying to become a delivery service! I wish it could have been me. They made history!

[dchill]

11. Not soft enough.

Bummer, dudes!

[Mawspam2]

13. Live on Arte Johnson.

Link to tweet

[Hassler]

14. Free Enterprise on display.

[lastlib]

15. That's true! William Shatner was on CNN during the landing broadcast!

[LudwigPastorius]

16. At least they didn't completely faceplant like Japan's lander.

?w=1197&ssl=1

[Orrex]

17. Did anyone ask The Moon how she felt about being crashed into by a private spacecraft?

[mahina]

18. They just need a big Polynesian guy to come by and tip it right side up

Like that brother did in Lahaina when the car, escaping the fires, huli’d from the wind.

Might have to wait a little while

[BumRushDaShow]

19. Like...

[mahina]

20. That's him!

[BumRushDaShow]

21. "The Rock"

(Dwayne Johnson) personified (in animation)!