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The first of the new images, taken as the lander touched down, shows at least one of its legs had been shattered, with rocks and dust being blown away at high speed by the force of the rocket engine. Telemetry data shows Odysseus originally landed upright, but then toppled over on a slight slope. In the low lunar gravity, it took around two seconds for it to come to rest, either on its fuel tank or a computer shelf on the outside of its structure.
The company also revealed the lander could be revived in 2-3 weeks' time when the sun rises again. The big unknown is whether the batteries and electronics can survive temperatures that dip below -200C (-328F).
Well that didn't help. Hopefully they can compensate for the next mission.
Was researching different recent moon lander designs and the legs/tall design of this current one. I found this for India's lander:
ISRO designed the lander’s legs to absorb most of the mechanical shock from the touchdown. The agency tested the legs on lunar simulant test beds on Earth to ensure that the lander could tolerate a high vertical velocity of three meters per second—and even a horizontal velocity of one meter per second if it were to touch down askew.
After seven days of operation on the lunar surface, Intuitive Machines announced on February 29th that the mission had ended with the onset of lunar night. While the lander was not intended to remain operational during the lunar night, flight controllers at Houston set Odysseus into a configuration that would “call home” if it made it through the two weeks of darkness. As of March 23rd, the company announced that their flight controllers’ predictions were correct and that Odie would not be making any more calls home.
The company started listening for a wake-up signal from Odysseus on March 20th, when they projected that there was enough sunlight in the lander’s vicinity. At the time, it was thought that this could potentially charge Odysseus‘ power system, allowing it to activate its radio and reestablish contact with Houston. However, three days later, at 10:30 AM Central Standard Time (08:30 AM PST; 11:30 AM EST), flight controllers determined that the lander was not charging up after it completed its mission.
Next up:
Quote:
A second Nova-C lander with the IM-2 mission will launch aboard a Falcon 9 no earlier than December 2024. This mission will land a drill and the Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment-1 (PRIME-1) mass spectrometer near the south pole of the Moon. This NASA payload will demonstrate the feasibility of In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) and measure the volatile content of subsurface samples.
A third mission (IM-3) is scheduled for early 2025, which will carry four NASA payloads to the Reiner Gamma region of the Moon, a rover, a data relay satellite, and secondary payloads to be determined.
Both sound pretty interesting. Reiner Gamma is the location of some strange swirls on the lunar surface from a localized magnetic field. Maybe they'll find a monolith there? Mmm, probably not.
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