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I think there's still some skepticism regarding the complete success of this landing. 15 minutes went by from the time Odysseus was supposed to have landed until the command center was able to confirm the landing and a weak signal. Odysseus may have a new home, but it's now more than 6 hours after the landing, and all we know is that it landed upright, and is sending data. I hope when I go online tomorrow morning the first pictures will be all over the world media, confirming the success.
BTW, it's a full moon tonight. Go out and look at the moon's south pole--that's where the lander is!
While calling it a “stable, controlled landing” of the IM-1 mission’s lunar lander, Intuitive Machines CEO revealed that it tipped on its side when it was coming in for a landing. However, the IM-1 team is in communication with Odysseus and is receiving data from it.
Due to an issue with Intuitive Machines’ lunar lander Odysseus’ internal navigation system, the EagleCam could not be deployed to capture the historic soft-moon landing of a spacecraft from a private company. After the NASA press conference with Altemus and three others, the EagleCam team told Spectrum News that its camera still has a lot of work ahead of it and it will be deployed to take pictures of the lunar lander on the moon’s surface.
Yeah, that's unfortunate.
“We think it came down (moving) about 6 miles an hour this way, and about 2 miles an hour (horizontally along the surface) and caught foot in the surface, and the lander has tipped. Only one piece of Odysseus’ cargo is on the side of the spacecraft that’s facing down toward the lunar surface.
They are doing an assessment to see: Are there any measurements still to come from any of the NASA supplied payloads that most likely can’t take place particularly because of this new orientation.
However the lander is still properly charging it's batteries.
I'm not a scientist, or a physicist, but someone ok'd (what I assume is) a top heavy box with a relatively narrow footprint. If rectangular is the ideal shape, why not make the rectangle land "the long way" where there's a larger footprint?
I know there's smarter people than me on this forum, but it seems like the design of these devices stop at "what we want it to do and nothing more" rather than "what if x happens?" I get it, weight is a concern but to me a mission failing simply because something tipped over should be unacceptable.
I'm not a scientist, or a physicist, but someone ok'd (what I assume is) a top heavy box with a relatively narrow footprint. If rectangular is the ideal shape, why not make the rectangle land "the long way" where there's a larger footprint?
I know there's smarter people than me on this forum, but it seems like the design of these devices stop at "what we want it to do and nothing more" rather than "what if x happens?" I get it, weight is a concern but to me a mission failing simply because something tipped over should be unacceptable.
That's exactly what I was thinking - this thing looks like a refridgerator. And if you look at the design of the last lunar lander that was successful and it was India's. India's design looks like a squat, wide and less prone to tipping over.
A vertical profile laying on its side collects no energy either.
Wouldn't it be wiser to have something with a horizontal profile and articulating solar panels?
Wouldn't is be wiser to design a landing vehicle that didn't land on a big rock? A simple profile is more reliable. What if the panels didn't unfold or track the Sun properly?
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