Moon lander tipped sideways on lunar surface but 'alive and well'

Reuters ^ | February 23, 20247:19 PM CST | By Steve Gorman and Joey Roulette

[Red Badger]

Feb 23 (Reuters) - The moon lander dubbed Odysseus is "alive and well" but resting on its side a day after its white-knuckle touchdown as the first private spacecraft ever to reach the lunar surface, and the first from the U.S. since 1972, the company behind the vehicle said on Friday. The vehicle is believed to have caught one of its six landing feet on the lunar surface near the end of its final descent and tipped over, coming to rest sideways, propped up on a rock, an analysis of data by flight engineers showed, according to Houston-based Intuitive Machines (LUNR.O), opens new tab. Still, all indications are that Odysseus "is stable near or at our intended landing site" close to a crater called Malapert A in the region of the moon's south pole, said Stephen Altemus, chief executive officer of Intuitive Machines, which built and flew the lander. "We do have communications with the lander," and mission control operators are sending commands to the vehicle, Altemus said, adding that they were working to obtain the first photo images from the lunar surface from the landing site. A brief update on the mission's status posted to the company's website earlier on Friday described Odysseus "alive and well." The company had said shortly after touchdown on Thursday that radio signals indicated Odysseus, a 13-foot-tall hexagonal cylinder, had landed in an upright position, but Atlemus said that faulty conclusion was based on telemetry from before the landing. Although the lander's horizontal position is far from ideal, company officials said that all but one of the six NASA science and technology payloads were mounted on portions of the vehicle left exposed and receptive to communications, "which is very good for us," Altemus said.

[Revel]

Very suspicious. And other info is lacking as well. How do those instruments work when they are no positioned as designed. And how do they communicate with it at working speed. They say nothing in detail.

[Lazamataz]

Well, let's look at the good side. At least trans and polysexual people are not oppressed in NASA any more!

DEI FOREVER!!!!

[linMcHlp]

Figuring that the dune buggy hit the “lunar lander,” and the lander tipped over.

Two hours of arguing among the parties involved, and no resolution.

So, somebody moved a mirror around, and the “lunar lander” is taking photos . . . of photos.

< /sarc >

[T.B. Yoits]

Maybe it slipped on a golf ball.

[T.B. Yoits]

Let’s call it what it is - littering.

[conservativeimage]

Now the pointless moon weather station is only 5 feet tall.

[Red Badger]

[OrioleFan]

They knew they had a problem when the lander activated it’s Life Alert button.

[SuperLuminal]

Seems that if they had used one of those bowl-shaped coasters used by kids in the snow instead of legs on the bottom of the module, the module would have landed and rocked into vertical position very smoothly...

Also, it would protect the verticality of the module if it is bumped by the next Indian module when, it arrives...

[dgbrown]

“Cow tippers at work.”

Well, we were told not to come back.

[verum ago]

And how do they communicate with it at working speed.

If the high-gain antenna isn't pointed at Earth (and it definitely ain't if the thing's on its side), they're not.

I first went from wary to suspicious this morning when they hadn't shared a photo yet. Didn't have the bandwidth, obviously.

Hopefully the low-gain antennas can handle the data from whatever instruments are working. Unless they're totally lying, they do have some low-bandwidth contact with it. I don't think they could get away with that magnitude lie, because the owners of the various instruments would know.

Going through the list of instruments and their locations on IM-1, I would guess that:

the two ILO-X cameras are definitely not pointed at the Milky Way like they're supposed to be, but one or both may still have a view of stars and accomplish something worthwhile

The laser retroflector array is definitely a bust (it had to have been on top), but no biggie for now because it's passive

The NASA NDL Lidar already did its thing on descent in filling in for the lander's failed ranging lasers

The six NASA stereo cameras can't all be facing in useful directions, nor can they all be facing terrain, so call that a partially functioning experiment

ROLSeS looks like it probably cannot function for its intended purpose tipped on its side, though one or both antennas might be able to gather something useful to someone

TigerEye (LSU radiation sensor) might be working just fine unless it's in the dirt

and EagleCam was never launched, so that's a total fail

Except for the ILO-X cameras and the retroflectors, it looks like most instruments were side-mounted, so whichever is / are on the side facing down are a bust. The others might be able to do something, but I suspect the bigger issue is transmitting their data back to Earth. Especially for all the cameras... they'd be bandwidth hogs compared to say ROLSeS and TigerEye.

[WeaslesRippedMyFlesh]

and she’s buying a ladder to heaven

[steve86]

“They routinely deal with issues that artificial intelligence can’t handle.”

AI will rapidly exceed human performance in area after area — for better or worse. Already superior in numerous endeavors, maybe starting with beating the world chess champion in 1997 when IBM’s Deep Blue defeated Garry Kasparov.

[steve86]

Thanks for the summary.

[Paul R.]

What we need here is a poll to see how many FReepers have at one time or another landed with their head against a rock.

I plead the 5th.

[Openurmind]

“Now the pointless moon weather station is only 5 feet tall.”

They couldn’t even give us our money’s worth. :)

[PIF]

What we need here is a poll to see how many FReepers have at one time or another landed with their head against a rock.

—
I can’t remember ...

[cp124]

Why do they move sideways and down when landing?

[Red Badger]

They still have forward motion from their de-orbit momentum.............

[pfflier]

Already superior in numerous endeavors, maybe starting with beating the world chess champion in 1997 when IBM’s Deep Blue defeated Garry Kasparov.

All AI starts at stupid and has to learn. It learns by making a mistake then not repeating it. It then makes more mistakes and eventually eliminates them until it has "learned" success. That is fine if variables in the process don't change.

It is also only as good as the programmer that creates the algorithms. If the programmer makes an error that is still accepted as a "truth" by the AI device.

We had a Mars lander that was incorrectly programmed in landing velocity (confusing meters and feet). It could not save itself although it had lots of code to adjust for a successful landing. It thought it was doing the right thing when the surface of Mars ended it's existence...