Intuitive Machines' Odysseus prepares for Moon landing

Intuitive Machines has tweaked today's Moon landing time to 2230 UTC following the successful insertion of its Odysseus lander into lunar orbit. The landing attempt will occur today, February 22, 2024, with descent orbit insertion beginning at 2117 UTC. Just over an hour later, at 2218 UTC, powered descent will begin. At 2228 …

[Anonymous Coward]

Hope it is better organised than their web page

No times in UTC (just in case dirty foreigners are interested), they mention the NASA TV coverage, but can't be bothered to give the URL or just make it a hyperlink, in case the IM feed sticks, oh look, it's stuck.

Great to aim for the Moon, why don't their IT/publicity guys try to do the same?

[EricB123]

Re: Hope it is better organised than their web page

"just in case dirty foreigners are interested"

I heard that!

[werdsmith]

Re: Hope it is better organised than their web page

" they mention the NASA TV coverage, but can't be bothered to give the URL"

www.youtube.com

[Anonymous Coward]

Success?

They called it a successful touch down after 10 or so minutes, let's see tomorrow morning.

[Joe W]

Re: Success?

Well, they got data back. From an apparently intact lander, at least it is still working well enough to talk to them.

I would call that a success already.

But I do get what you mean. We all do hope not too many things broke!

[Killing Time]

Re: Success?

Considering they had to patch the landing sensor inputs to the NASA test devices at pretty much the last minute I would say receiving any data from the probe on the surface is a resounding success!

Talk about flying by the seat of their pants!

It was looking like a massive RUD could have been on the cards at one point.

[Lon24]

Re: Success?

The EagleCam which was supposed to be ejected to take pictures of the landing seems to have gone MIA. I wonder if that mighty solar flare helped to disrupt comms and possibly other instruments. Moon landings are tricky when you don't have an Armstrong at the wheel.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Success?

"It was looking like a massive RUD could have been on the cards at one point."

It almost became a RUD as the lander has apparently landed and then tipped over...with the attached artwork on it's die now facing downwards towards the lunar surface.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-68388695

quote:

The Odysseus Moon lander is likely lying on its side with its head resting against a rock.

The US spacecraft, which made history on Thursday by becoming the first ever privately built and operated robot to complete a soft lunar touchdown, is otherwise in good condition.

Its owner, Texan firm Intuitive Machines, says Odysseus has plenty of power and is communicating with Earth.

Controllers are trying to retrieve pictures from the robot.

Steve Altemus, the CEO and co-founder of IM, said it wasn't totally clear what had happened but the data suggested the robot caught a foot on the surface and then fell because it still had some lateral motion at the moment of landing.

Another possibility is that Odysseus broke a leg as it came down. Certainly, inertial measurement sensors indicate the body of the vehicle to be in a horizontal pose.