Sideways moon landing cuts mission short, private US lunar lander will stop working Tuesday

AP ^ | 02 26 2024 | MARCIA DUNN

[yesthatjallen]

A private U.S. lunar lander is expected to stop working Tuesday, its mission cut short after landing sideways near the south pole of the moon.

Intuitive Machines, the Houston company that built and flew the spacecraft, said Monday it will continue to collect data until sunlight no longer shines on the solar panels. Based on the position of Earth and the moon, officials expect that to happen Tuesday morning. That’s two to three days short of the week or so that NASA and other customers had been counting on.

The lander, named Odysseus, is the first U.S. spacecraft to land on the moon in more than 50 years, carrying experiments for NASA, the main sponsor. But it came in too fast last Thursday and the foot of one of its six legs caught on the surface, causing it to tumble over, according to company officials.

SNIP

[AnotherUnixGeek]

The lander, named Odysseus, is the first U.S. spacecraft to land on the moon in more than 50 years

Practice makes perfect.

[Empire_of_Liberty]

Maybe the next probe will be a Weeble. The Japanese seemed to have the same problem.

[Magnum44]

Bummer, I know one of the lead engineers and designers (and one of the founders of Intuitive Systems). Its a success and a disappointment. Space continues to be ‘hard’. Countless things can go wrong.

[teeman8r]

uh, it didn’t so much land on the lunar surface as much as crash landed... on its side.

i would hope NASA would have had a contingency in place for that... like a roll bar or something.

[cgbg]

I nominate inflatable air bags.

Lol.

[bigbob]

Female operator?

[FlingWingFlyer]

These things were more successful when calculations were made with slide rules instead of cellphones and lap tops.

[1Old Pro]

uh, it didn’t so much land on the lunar surface as much as crash landed... on its side.

Exactly

[Cowgirl of Justice]

And no DEI... (not saying that this was a part of it, but still....)

[Ezekiel]

it came in too fast last Thursday and the foot of one of its six legs caught on the surface, causing it to tumble over, according to company officials.

A more down-to-earth explanation is that Odysseus tripped.

[FlingWingFlyer]

You’re 100% right.

[PIF]

So much for AI controlled landings.

[Ge0ffrey]

No one thought of that possibility? Was there an engineer in the house?

[daku]

Some company will one day have a maintenance/service robot to inspect failed landings, dust off solar panels and set failed landing craft upright.

[V_TWIN]

That’s what they get for not hiring Elon.

When it comes to moon landings you get what you pay for.

[Macho MAGA Man]

If you ask me they designed it wrong. Looks like they tried to land a top heavy upright refrigerator.

[VanShuyten]

“ So much for AI controlled landings.”

Yes. We were very happy to have skilled pilots on a couple of our moon landings.

[PIF]

AI controlled as opposed to Mission controlled - no human needed.

[Bernard]

Practice makes consistent. Perfect practice makes perfect. A slight distinction.