back to article Intuitive Machines' lunar lander tripped and fell

Intuitive Machines' Odysseus lander last week became the first American lander to touch down on the Moon in 50 years – albeit landing on its side. Initially the Texas-based private firm said Odysseus was "upright and starting to send data" but later corrected this assessment during a press conference. CEO Stephen Altemus used …

  1. Neil Barnes Silver badge
    Pint

    from Apollo days there wasn't one mission that went absolutely perfectly

    True, but I don't remember any that landed on their side... obviously getting a human in the control loop has certain advantages!

    Nonetheless, kudos and one of these for the team --->

    Of course, 'pictures or it didn't happen' is all a bit passé now. But I'm still looking forward to seeing them.

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: from Apollo days there wasn't one mission that went absolutely perfectly

      On Mars, or course, the NASA copter had a rotor failure and still ended up standing on its feet.

    2. imanidiot Silver badge

      Re: from Apollo days there wasn't one mission that went absolutely perfectly

      The Apollo landers (and Surveyor before that) had a comparatively much larger footprint and much lower center of mass. Which made them far less sensitive to tipping over. Both SLIM and Odysseus (Intuitive machines) used a very different landing style and design. SLIM had the novel approach of tipping over on purpose and intended to end up on it's side. It lost an engine nozzle on approach and still managed to get to the surface more or less intact, it just didn't have enough control with the missing engine and ended up over rotated and on it's side. Odysseus was quite tall with a pretty high CoM . To avoid complexity it's landing legs were not folding, but the largest they could fit inside the payload fairing of the launch vehicle. That meant it was more sensitive to lateral drift and likely it just caught a rock at the worst possible moment (just before touchdown) and ended up face-planting a rock.

      1. Spherical Cow

        Re: from Apollo days there wasn't one mission that went absolutely perfectly

        I won't be at all surprised if future landers have a more short&wide design for a low COG.

        1. imanidiot Silver badge

          Re: from Apollo days there wasn't one mission that went absolutely perfectly

          I would, at least for the IM missions.The fuel and oxidizer mix they use doesn't have the same density and volumetric flow rates (they're using liquid hydrogen and oxygen) which means they need either 4 tanks to distribute the weight evenly (with 2 oxygen tanks and 2 hydrogen tanks opposite each other) or they need 2 tanks to be stacked on top of each other (automatically leading to a relatively tall design). The only way to increase the footprint would be to go to folding legs, which is a lot of extra complexity for not a whole lot of reward if all other things work as intended. It would also have helped a lot if they hadn't left the safe-ing pins for the laser range finders in. That's the "WTF?" takeaway for this mission.

          1. Spherical Cow

            Re: from Apollo days there wasn't one mission that went absolutely perfectly

            The Apollo landers used 4 tanks, 2 for fuel and 2 for oxidiser as you described, and they were short&wide (the bit that was left behind on the surface anyway). So we know that configuration works.

            Yes the laser range finder stuff-up was astoundingly bad.

  2. Anonymous Custard Silver badge
    Boffin

    Robot Wars?

    Should we lend these guys some old VHS tapes of Robot Wars, and highlight the srimech?

    RIP Rex Garrod...

  3. Scene it all

    Article mentions Japanese effort failing, and US hasn't done it in 50 years. ooo, it's haaard! No mention of India and China pulling it off and the Chinese one even had a rover.

    1. Neil Barnes Silver badge

      I believe the Japanese one just sprung back to life with the coming of daylight.

    2. RegGuy1

      Yutu 2

      And the Chinese even did it on the far (dark?) side: China's Yutu rover spots 'mysterious hut' on far side of the Moon.

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: Yutu 2

        Was it a Pizza Hut?

        1. Scene it all

          Re: Yutu 2

          Anyone who has played Lunar Lander on the PDP-11 knows it is a McDonalds.

          1. jake Silver badge

            Re: Yutu 2

            If you ever find a version of any of those old games that references The House of Prime Rib, it probably passed through my lair ...

        2. Benegesserict Cumbersomberbatch Silver badge

          Re: Yutu 2

          It was Pizza the Hutt.

  4. elsergiovolador Silver badge

    On the side

    Does it mean it will sent photos in portrait mode?

    Do they know that is illegal?

  5. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    "Touchdown! This week, America landed a spacecraft on the Moon for the first time since 1972"

    Yeah, on its side.

    After two other countries did so much more successfully.

    But hey, never miss a chance to USA! USA ! USA!

    1. A. Coatsworth Silver badge
      Joke

      Well, it would be extremely awckward for any goverment to comment "well, we tried this but it is hard, and by the way, XYZ country is kicking our @ss... bummer, i know "

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Promising pics any day now...

    The LLM just needs a little more fine tuning.

    Seriosuly, what the hell is taking them so long?!

  7. Frank Bitterlich

    We believe...

    "We believe this is the orientation of the lander on the Moon..."

    I wonder why it's so difficult to actually know the exact orientation of the lander? Didn't they put accelerometers in to measure the exact orientation? Or ist that not possible due to the reduced gravity?

    It sounds like they are guesstimating the orientation from the light received by the different solar panels...?

  8. DS999 Silver badge
    Trollface

    90 degrees better than Japan

    Who landed theirs upside down!

    Seriously though for all the crap NASA gets for their costs compared to private efforts like this one, they do have a much better track record of sticking the landing.

    1. StrangerHereMyself Silver badge

      Re: 90 degrees better than Japan

      I was wondering if it was possible to push the lander upright with its steering rockets (located on the top and above the center of gravity). May not work, but what do they have to lose?

      The mission as it is is a failure. Might as well give it a try.

  9. StrangerHereMyself Silver badge

    Failure

    I see this mission as a failure. Tipping over makes the lander more or less useless and reduces the transmission rate to a crawl due to the antenna's not being aligned properly.

    Also, the horizontal speed component, although minor (about walking speed) shouldn't have been there. This means sub-par engineering since even the first Surveyor lunar lander (launched almost 55 years ago) got this part right. In fact, the Surveyors were so primitive that all the computing power for it was actually based in Houston and the lander itself was remotely controlled, despite the 1 or 2 second delay.

    1. Mark Exclamation

      Re: Failure

      Absolutely agree! There is no way this can be considered a success. Landing a top-heavy vehicle with a positive-horizontal motion is just amateurish. Plus, an employee left the cover on the lidar which should have been removed before launch - really!? This company has a lot to learn.

      1. StrangerHereMyself Silver badge

        Re: Failure

        These companies will learn from their mistakes and eventually get it right so I'm hopeful of the future.

        Mind you that it took SpaceX four or five launches to get something into orbit and it almost bankrupted the company.

      2. jake Silver badge

        Re: Failure

        "There is no way this can be considered a success."

        Disagree. It got to the moon and landed[0] in one piece. The communications link is up and running. Science can be done. Many things will be learned. It is without a doubt a win in my book. The only abject failure is the bit of payload attached to the side that it landed on, and that's just a vanity piece so who cares.

        [0] Anything you can walk away from is a landing.

    2. Peter Ford

      Re: Failure

      Not a failure.

      Just "Another partial success" as Dr. Piehead would have said.

  10. hfo1

    Slightly more embarassing

    "During the mission, the Intuitive Machines team said they were concerned that the lander could get lost when they detected a faulty piece of navigation equipment." - no, they realised (by chance) that someone had forgotten to remove the safety lock from the LIDAR system. They did an epic job of patching in signals from another sensor but somebody forgot the checklist.

  11. HereIAmJH Silver badge

    Ball shaped

    One upside down, one on it's side. In the future we will make all our landers ball shaped, and every landing will be a success. The Alien Overloads hiding on the moon will need to find another way to molest our landers.

    Or maybe someone could walk on the sound stage on the back lot and stand it back up?

    1. Spherical Cow

      Re: Ball shaped

      First, assume a spherical lander...

  12. The Oncoming Scorn Silver badge
    Mushroom

    Obligatory

    John Koenig: The giant leap for Mankind... it's beginning to look like a stumble in the dark.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    One word...

    Weeble

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It was all the Jeff Koons “art” included in the payload

    It all shifted to one side.

  15. Henry Wertz 1 Gold badge

    Not a failure

    Calling this a failure is too harsh. The instruments on it are operating (they don't rely on the lander being upright) and it's returning data.

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