Intuitive Machines blames dim lighting and dodgy data for second lunar faceplant

Intuitive Machines has blamed poor lighting, a problematic altimeter, and difficulties spotting craters for the company's second lunar lander tipping over. Landing on the Moon isn't easy. Intuitive Machines has tried twice and experienced problems on both occasions. Its first mission, using a lander dubbed Odysseus, descended …

[The Man Who Fell To Earth]

Mechanical Engineering

Maybe Intuitive Machines should stop designing "intuitively" and hire some mechanical engineers and physicists who understand about the center of mass, moments of inertia, aspect ratios, and can calculate that kind of stuff.

When I worked in SV, "Move fast and break things." had the corollary of "Just don't break things by making obviously stupid mistakes."

[TVU]

Re: Mechanical Engineering

"Maybe Intuitive Machines should stop designing "intuitively" and hire some mechanical engineers and physicists who understand about the center of mass, moments of inertia, aspect ratios, and can calculate that kind of stuff".

^ Exactly this. The lander ought to be shaped more like an ice hockey puck and less like a tin can and with extended landing legs so that it has a lower centre of gravity and so is less likely to tip over.

[david1024]

Re: Mechanical Engineering

At some point, the go fast/break things folks...Maybe Don't understand what they are breaking. I think they know... They keep blaming sensors, but they need margins to account for that--and fix the sensors. Not just change the sensor and hope.

So knowing and understanding don't seem to be meeting up in the design from out here where I can see.

However, I do know:

Fast, cheap, right.... Pick 2.

Been an engineering rule forever. They need to push the triangle to the right a bit more. Maybe they have, wish them luck with me.

[Tron]

Plan B.

Have the inside of the spacecraft rotate within the outer shell, so whichever way up it lands, the gubbins inside can rotate, and whichever panels are uppermost can open.

[Gordon 10]

Re: Plan B.

Ah yes. Now work out a design that achieves that with minimal mass gain and functionality loss, and no complexity gain.

Twonk.

[Hurn]

When at first you don't succeed...

"Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built in all the same, just to show them. It sank into the swamp.

So I built a second one. That sank into the swamp.

So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp.

But the fourth one stayed up." -- M. Python & the Holy Grail

[Fr. Ted Crilly]

Re: When at first you don't succeed...

And you're marrying Princess Lucky and that's final!

[Casca]

Re: When at first you don't succeed...

And no singing!

[DS999]

Poor lighting?

They knew they were landing on the south pole where the sun would cast long shadows. Were they not prepared for that? Maybe they should try to land somewhere easier first??

[MachDiamond]

Re: Poor lighting?

"Maybe they should try to land somewhere easier first??"

That would be my critique. Trying to land at the south pole one the first go is the analog of a "hail mary" pass in American football or a desperate throw of a basketball all the way down the court at the buzzer for a basket to tie/win.

I have a hard time thinking a newish company getting a landing right on an "easy" spot of the moon is going to be criticized for being cautious. Even if they nailed one of the landings and then found some thermal or power issue afterwards, it would have been better to go for the soft target first and learn that lesson.

What I'd really like to see is a robot sent down into one of the suspected caves. Finding out if there are accessible/useful water resources at the south pole can come later.

[An_Old_Dog]

Re: Poor lighting?

Maybe next time they should bring a flashlight.

It seems as though they hadn't considered some of the should-be-obvious difficulties.

At least they're not selling rides, as did OceanGate.

[NapTime ForTruth]

It wasn't always like this...

Remember back in the 1960s when we managed to build and deliver actual spacecraft containing actual humans from Earth onto the moon, and they were able to get out, walk around, take pictures, plant flags, etc. - and later to drive a freakin' car across the lunar regolith like they were shooting a Burt Reynolds-goes-to-space flick?

And we did it using something equivalent to a very large firework, a couple of wrenches, primitive computers, paper notes on a clipboard, and men willing to just effing do it?

And then we sent space probes to the furthest reaches of our solar system and beyond that still return novel scientific data?

And then we built actual space-planes to fly repeatedly up to space and back for the purpose of building literal space stations.

And then we sent semi-autonomous scientific machines - including a space helicopter - to land on Mars to explore and return detailed information about...well, everything.

And now we have vast interconnected banks of technology spread across the entirety of this good Earth, positively guzzling enough energy every second to power an extinction event that would make dinosaurs come back from their graves just to laugh at us and watch the lights and the lives wink out, but faster this time.

And dozens of companies vying to fill the skies with multiply redundant television and social media diseases - er, broadcasts.

And we can't manage to land the new landers on our moon right. side. up.

The math hasn't changed and the technology is supposed to be eons better, sooo...

I'm thinking we're the new dinosaurs, but with claws and teeth and motivation replaced by belly fat, snark, and cellphones.

Hooray.

[MachDiamond]

Re: It wasn't always like this...

"And then we sent semi-autonomous scientific machines - including a space helicopter - to land on Mars to explore and return detailed information about...well, everything."

The landers and rovers that have made it to Mars have been aimed at the most benign terrain that could be ascertained. The landing sites didn't serve up the most interesting features, but gave the best odds of survival and doing some science. The helicopter was a small aggressive project that paid off very well. If it didn't work, the cost was low enough and it had little likelihood of impacting the rest of the mission.

[Gordon 10]

Re: It wasn't always like this...

And your points are totally irrelevant... leaving aside whether they have a decent design the purpose of this exercise is to produce "Model-T" landers from in a vaguely commodity fashion. Not the hand crafted Bentleys you are describing. Its actioning different sides of the Faster, Cheaper, Better triangle.

You are also making the totally flawed assumption that progress is linear - it never it.

(Im neither for or against these current efforts - just pointing out the massive logical fallacies in your arguments.)

[NapTime ForTruth]

Re: It wasn't always like this...

"...actioning different sides of the Faster, Cheaper, Better triangle..."

Fair point.

Which corners of that triangle failed? All eleven of them. And how many working Model-Ts have they built and landed? None, unless they count crashing into a relatively gigantic and well known immovable object as "landing". And how many have they built in crank-em-out mass-produced Model-T style? Also none.

This effort was a complete failure, the exact opposite of a Model-T, unless they somehow thought the Model-T was also designed without lights and would work best upside down underwater while also crashing at speed in the hands of three blind mice. They apparently didn't know the surface would be dark...even though we've actually been to the moon before and have pictures both local and remote, and in a sense some of the earliest "images" date back to Galileo Galilei.

It's not that they failed to make something, it's more like they didn't read the instructions or study any prior art, or do their homework. It's like someone down the pub handed them a beverage, and the recipient poured the lager down his shirt and tried to eat the glass...because he didn't know any better.

Also, I'm very much overdoing this because it's continuously hilarious. I'll stop, right here in fact.

[Annihilator]

Much like the solar explorers...

"long shadows and dim lighting conditions"

I have a suggestion based on the scientist who wanted to explore the sun, but was fearful of the high temperatures - so they went at night time.

Do the same with the moon, where it's brighter at night time and it won't be so dim!

[Red Ted]

We collected the most detailed imagery of the lunar South Pole on mission two

"Most detailed" because the camera was facedown in the lunar regolith?

[Andy Baird]

A couple of comments.

1. The brightness of the moon's surface hasn't changed in millennia, and is well known and well photographed--in short, it's 100% predictable. So blaming "poor lighting" is a lame excuse.

2. Intuitive's optical navigation system has now failed twice in a row. Maybe it's time time to try. . . I don't know. . . radar?

[StrangerHereMyself]

Radio altimeter

Why didn't they just use a radio altimeter instead of a laser altimeter. Radio altimeters have been used since WWII and are very reliable although their power consumption is somewhat higher. But hey, power consumption doesn't matter much if you're lying in pieces on the Lunar surface, right?

[Scene it all]

Meanwhile China has done this four times, including near the South Pole, and on the lunar backside out of direct radio contact.

[StrangerHereMyself]

Because they used a regular radio altimeter.

[MachDiamond]

"Meanwhile China has done this four times, including near the South Pole, and on the lunar backside out of direct radio contact."

I expect there were slight differences in budgets.

[rskurat]

language

glib butchery of the english language appears to be an absolute requirement for CEOs. No doubt matching VC ignorance