US spacecraft on the moon ‘caught a foot’ and tipped on to side, says Nasa
US spacecraft on the moon ‘caught a foot’ and tipped on to side, says Nasa
Intuitive Machines CEO says Odysseus tipped over and ended up on its side as it landed on to south polar region
Odysseus, the first US-built spacecraft to touchdown on the moon in more than half a century, is tipped over on its side, according to an update from Nasa and Intuitive Machines, the company that built and operated the lander.
The robotic lander descended on to the south polar region of the moon on Thursday at 6.23pm ET. But several minutes passed before flight controllers were able to pick up a signal from the lander’s communication systems.
As it landed, Odysseus “caught a foot in the surface and tipped” said Intuitive Machines CEO Steve Altemus, ending up on its side.
Still, the lander is “near or at our intended landing site”, he said. Nasa and Intuitive Machines said they have been receiving data from the lander and believe that most of the scientific instruments that it is carrying are in a position to work.
These engineers need to watch more BattleBots. You always build in a self-righting mechanism.
48in lunar gravity? more likely to flip it over & land on the other side
3With the low gravity, you could install a reaction wheel to flip it and then stop when it's upright.
Of course that adds complexity, and a high dynamic torque would need a more robust structure. Both of those things mean more weight and higher cost, both in construction and launch.
6Just flip it again until it lands upright.
2
The average person may well scoff at the idea that we can't land on the moon properly even though we could do it 60 years ago, but your average KSP chads are just amazed we've managed to actually land on the mun and not waste billions on making penis rockets that crash 10ft away from base.
33your average KSP chads are just amazed we've managed to actually land on the mun and not waste billions on making penis rockets that crash 10ft away from base.
Bro, why did you have to call me out like that.
13To be fair, the recent bunch of failed or partially successful landers have mostly been countries that haven't landed on the moon before, or private companies that haven't done it themselves and have an incentive to save money during the design process, or Russia, which has been letting their space program decay for some time now.
4the mun
It should be "mum" (British), "mam" (Irish) or "mom" (Americanish).
-6
the word for that is:
tripped
22Tipping culture is getting out of hand
8“Tripping culture is getting out of hand”
FTFY
2
So Japens moon lander landed upside down, and Americas fell over. This isn't looking too good for the future of space exploration.
10Mars landers: are we a joke to you??
8Sometimes: https://www.nature.com/articles/43974
Okay fine that one was an orbiter, not a lander, but still.
2
We have multiple countries sending moon landers, and a few planning to return people to the moon to start a launching pad to Mars. A few accidents involving unmanned probes is nothing to worry about.
6Need to start launching from Australia at this rate. Maybe then they'll show up in the correct vertical orientation.
6A few years back one crashed because the European team used metric and the American team used imperial. They are getting better..
5AGAIN!
Because miscommunications on standardized measurements is apparently a recurring theme in aerospace engineering.
I'm in the US, I almost exclusively use imperial, but all my CAD models are metric, all my hobbies are geared for metric.
The fact that companies involved in multi-m/billion dollar endeavors can't figure out "measure twice..."
5>tries science
>uses imperial
???
3It's weird to me that nobody noticed earlier
1
You know… I think naming a spaceship (or any ship, really) after a man who took twenty years to return from his voyage might not be the best idea to avoid jinxing it.
10Yeah. Should have named it Icarus or Unsinkable 2 or something like that.
9"Unsinkable 2 - For real this time!"
1Maybe they should have just gone all in and named it Titan after that one famous boat.
Can't remember what that boat was so famous for tho /s
1
Should have called it Achilles then.
6This certainly doesn't sound like a very intuitive machine.
4Wait, wasn't this a private company? Are there two new Lunar landers?
3NASA funded lander built and operated by Intuitive Machines, launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9, delivering NASA scientific payloads.
5There are several! Instead of funding one large, expensive NASA mission, they took the unusual approach of funding many small and new companies a relatively small amount of money to develop their technology and attempt a landing with some NASA payloads under the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program.
The idea is that they know some are going to fail, especially their first attempt. The NASA administrator in charge of the program has described the strategy as “shots on goal.” These are basically startups with untested technology using “cheap” stuff instead of traditional aerospace materials because that’s all they could afford. But the payoff could be huge if they do actually succeed and they’re getting closer and closer to that! Here’s a rough schedule:
https://www.planetary.org/space-missions/clps
So yes, these are all private companies that received NASA funding to help develop their landers, but the funding was small for a mission of this scale and most the companies bid at a loss in order to win their missions.
4My understanding is it's a NASA mission but they hitched a ride on a private rocket
2
The Police were asked for their opinion and said: “Giant steps are what you take, walking on the moon.”
2ACAB ... including Sting.
0This is my favorite Sting interview.
1
Title forgot "and they call it a success" /s
But my guess this only happens for Japan.
1