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Sideways moon landing cuts mission short, private US lunar lander will stop working Tuesday
AP ^ | 02 26 2024 | MARCIA DUNN

Posted on 02/26/2024 11:58:08 AM PST by 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

(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...


TOPICS: Japan; News/Current Events; US: Texas
KEYWORDS: houston; intuitivemachines; japan; letmuskdoit; lunerlander; moon; nasa; oops; slim; texas; themoon
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To: PIF

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

It’s really surprising that, given the capability to simulate the landing against well-known types of moon terrain, gravity, celestial mechanics, the lander itself, etc., that this could happen.


21 posted on 02/26/2024 12:47:35 PM PST by The Antiyuppie (When small men cast long shadows, then it is very late in the day.)
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To: yesthatjallen
True Engineering is 10 failures to every 1 success because ofMurphy’s Law. Unless you lunar land in a studio…

Afunny thing happened on the way to the moon…
22 posted on 02/26/2024 12:53:31 PM PST by Jan_Sobieski (Sanctification)
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To: cgbg

i guess that’s why we don’t see any space aliens coming forward... every probe they sent topple over... all they see is gravity gone wrong with everything upside down and not falling up.


23 posted on 02/26/2024 12:55:06 PM PST by teeman8r (Armageddon won't be pretty, but it's not like it's the end of the world or something )
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To: Magnum44

Exactly. Remember the Vanguard! And a lot more:

List of spaceflight-related accidents and …
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_spaceflight...
As of March 2023, in-flight accidents have killed 15 astronauts and 4 cosmonauts in five separate incidents. [2] Three of the flights had flown above the Kármán line (edge of space), and one was intended to do so. In each of these accidents the entire crew was killed. See more


24 posted on 02/26/2024 1:14:58 PM PST by SaxxonWoods (Are you ready for Black Lives MAGA? It's coming.)
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To: teeman8r

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

I thought I read that it touched down upright but fell over. I’m curious to hear more about any new details.


25 posted on 02/26/2024 1:17:51 PM PST by SaxxonWoods (Are you ready for Black Lives MAGA? It's coming.)
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To: Jan_Sobieski
Afunny thing happened on the way to the moon…

Yeah ...

We got there.

26 posted on 02/26/2024 1:20:13 PM PST by NorthMountain (... the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed)
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To: yesthatjallen

Probably a good thing it failed. They would have just used it to punish us here on Earth because of “lunar warming”.

They need to quit dumping money into these projects, they can’t even do them right.


27 posted on 02/26/2024 1:21:04 PM PST by Openurmind (The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world it leaves to its children. ~ D. Bonhoeffer)
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To: SaxxonWoods

“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.”

Oops, I should have read the comments first.


28 posted on 02/26/2024 1:21:08 PM PST by SaxxonWoods (Are you ready for Black Lives MAGA? It's coming.)
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To: V_TWIN
That’s what they get for not hiring Elon.

They should have hired a child. The kid would recommend designing the craft to operate while on its side, any side. Problem solved.

29 posted on 02/26/2024 1:27:41 PM PST by roadcat
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To: yesthatjallen

Maybe this is the moon people’s version of cow tipping.


30 posted on 02/26/2024 1:31:15 PM PST by GreenHornet
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To: 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.

The Atlantic Ocean was 'hard,' once upon a time.

31 posted on 02/26/2024 1:50:47 PM PST by Steely Tom ([Voter Fraud] == [Civil War])
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To: roadcat

Anybody that watches BattleBots knows most of the bots contain an onboard mechanism of some sort that will right it in the event it gets flipped upside down.


32 posted on 02/26/2024 1:54:07 PM PST by V_TWIN (America...so great even the people that hate it refuse to leave!)
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To: yesthatjallen

The whole thing looks fake.


33 posted on 02/26/2024 2:41:33 PM PST by roving (Deplorable Listless Vessel Trumpist With Trumpitis and a Rainbow Bully)
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To: yesthatjallen

Its design was always too top heavy and too tall. My engineer son mentioned this weeks ago prior to launch. Literally said “looks wobbly like a painters scaffold”


34 posted on 02/26/2024 3:34:32 PM PST by montag813
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To: yesthatjallen

if ya have never built a go-kart...ya know NOTHING about center-of-gravity issues...


35 posted on 02/26/2024 3:37:11 PM PST by mo ("If you understand, no explanation is needed; if you don't understand, no explanation is possible)
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To: yesthatjallen

Cash for clunkers?


36 posted on 02/26/2024 4:14:18 PM PST by Libloather (Why do climate change hoax deniers live in mansions on the beach?)
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To: yesthatjallen

They wanted to use “there are a lot of ways of this going sideways” in a sentence.


37 posted on 02/26/2024 5:21:40 PM PST by frank ballenger (There's a battle outside and it's raging. It'll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls.)
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