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.
With 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.
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.
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.
To 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.
You gotta consider that when a country doesn’t do something for sixty years, that means basically anyone that actually worked on it has retired. They probably have access to more research and data but it’s probably all stored in ancient formats barely used anymore.
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.
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.
There 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:
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.