Not again! Just as I was celebrating that the lander had made it to the Moons surface I got this news on my phone this morning. I do wonder what happened to the lander to end up on it's side like that.
 
A shame if it was top heavy NMaude, will it still be able to carry out experiments though? That was after all it's primary mission.
 
- they hadn't fully canceled yaw rate (or spin)
- the lander had still a bit of forward (or lateral) speed and tripped over.
- they improvised landing at a slightly higher mass when residual motion is non-trivial.

I think, Messieurs, this is a good occasion to lower (again) our hats in a general salute to the Apollo LEM pilots.

Kids today see black and white pictures or funny grainy color footage and they think that's easy.

Easy to get unbroken coms. Easy to land in regolith. Easy to deal with the absence of atmosphere (that act as a damper to unwanted motion for example). Easy to deal with relaxed gravity... Yeah.
 
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Space News (comment section) has a blurb about an eye-unsafe laser now being switched back on for launch.
 
They also admitted leaving the dust covers on the LIDAR sensors I believe.

Fuckwits! Didn't they have bright red "Remove before Flight" signs on these covers? No doubt someone has been yelled at for this idiotic fuckup.

Edit: The Space Bucket has uploaded a video concerning the lander's toppling over.


A few days ago on the 22nd the Intuitive Machines lunar lander attempted to touchdown on the lunar south pole. This was quite a big deal as not only was it a private company responsible but this was also the first U.S. lunar landing attempt in over 50 years. However, what was initially reported by the company as a successful and upright landing, has since changed with new information.
We now know that during its final approach toward the surface, they believe one of its legs got caught in a hole in the ground tipping the entire lunar lander onto its side. It now is horizontal with some of its solar panels now sideways rather than vertical attempting to gather energy. Despite this mishap, teams at Intuivitve Machines and NASA believe it can still complete part of its science mission. Here I will go more in-depth into the landing error, how it happened, what this means for the rest of the mission, and more.
 
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Someone had the right idea here for a Mars lander - assuming you have the weight budget for really long legs. I'm not being facetious here in suggesting that maybe the lander should be designed to land on its side - much lower centre of gravity, wider footprint, so it's more stable in one axis anyway. The (rejected) Dynetics lander concept for Artemis illustrated.
 

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We have drones encased in spheres so as to prevent damage…perhaps that can be used:

It would not have to be a rover as here:


Perhaps an inner sphere with contents that stay upright without regard to which way the outer sphere is directed.

Exhaust resistant inflates perhaps.
 
Fuckwits! Didn't they have bright red "Remove before Flight" signs on these covers? No doubt someone has been yelled at for this idiotic fuckup.

Edit: The Space Bucket has uploaded a video concerning the lander's toppling over.

There should be an engineering equivalent to the Golden Raspberry/Darwin Awards - designing a lander with six legs that is still able to topple is almost an accomplishment in itself.
 
Phillip Sloss has just uploaded a new update concerning the status of the Artemis II launch hardware:


Another NASA Artemis update on the Moon to Mars programs to report this time.
The seventh RS-25 hot-fire test in a Retrofit 3b series of 12 occurred at NASA Stennis Space Center in the afternoon of February 23, with a 550 second hot-fire. Engine 0525 will test a second new production restart nozzle for the remainder of the series.
NASA Public Affairs posted more pictures of Exploration Ground Systems work to finish stacking preparations for the Artemis II Solid Rocket Boosters. Painting of the NASA worm logo on the center-center segments is complete and work to finish aft assembly buildup is expected to be complete soon. Video of a Mobile Launcher crew access arm swing test at Launch Pad 39B was also published.
A Universal Stage Adapter test article for the SLS Block 1B Crew vehicle in development was also seen in transport to Marshall Space Flight Center during the week.

I wonder when the SLS thread is going to be reopened?
 
- they hadn't fully canceled yaw rate (or spin)
- the lander had still a bit of forward (or lateral) speed and tripped over.
- they improvised landing at a slightly higher mass when residual motion is non-trivial.

I think, Messieurs, this is a good occasion to lower (again) our hats in a general salute to the Apollo LEM pilots.

Kids today see black and white pictures or funny grainy color footage and they think that's easy.

Easy to get unbroken coms. Easy to land in regolith. Easy to deal with the absence of atmosphere (that act as a damper to unwanted motion for example). Easy to deal with relaxed gravity... Yeah.
Yes, the astronauts were well aware of the need for only vertical (Z axis) motion in the final moments of descent. The upper left panel on the LM had a (digitally driven) analog display of cross pointers, which displayed the X and Y rates on the LM. This assisted the LM commander to access the rates and null them out prior to landing.
 
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Apparently it was a system in the LIDAR to protect people’s eyes on the ground from the laser, but should have been removed before launch but wasn’t.
There is Reason why certain organizations have and employ extensively detailed procedure instructions and exhaustive checklists, both of which do admittedly cost man hours and money.
 
I wonder when the SLS thread is going to be reopened?
Well…some will attack it, I defend..more back-and forth—and locked again.

There, I saved you the trouble :)

At any rate, Starship is now part of Arty, so…this thread is moving along well. I won’t hex it.
 
there reason why you should build your Moon lander like this:

1174px-ChangE-4_-_PCAM_%2851216550288%29.png
 
I suppose the designers will be wishing that they had built IM-1 like that Michel Van, it is the only way to make sure that it lands on the Moon without tipping over.
 
there reason why you should build your Moon lander like this:

1174px-ChangE-4_-_PCAM_%2851216550288%29.png

There are often competing constraints at play, though. One challenge might be fitting that type of wide format lander inside the existing payload shroud and still carrying the same payload.

There are a lot of "but for" failures at work here. For example, if they had only remembered to pull the eye safe covers off the nav lasers, then they would not have had to improvise a new landing navigation system at the last minute. And with the original nav system, they might have been better at nulling their rates for landing. Or better at picking a landing spot without an obstacle. Etc.
 
- they hadn't fully canceled yaw rate (or spin)
- the lander had still a bit of forward (or lateral) speed and tripped over.
- they improvised landing at a slightly higher mass when residual motion is non-trivial.
Because they were used a test LIDAR for data because the primary was inop
 
I think, Messieurs, this is a good occasion to lower (again) our hats in a general salute to the Apollo LEM pilots.
Not really.
A. There was 5 unmanned Surveyors that landed on the moon before them
b. There are/was 5 landers and 5 rovers placed on Mars
c. And more so, there were no LEM pilots, only LM pilots.
 
Fuckwits! Didn't they have bright red "Remove before Flight" signs on these covers? No doubt someone has been yelled at for this idiotic fuckup.
It was an enable plug that wasn't installed.
edited
 
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There should be an engineering equivalent to the Golden Raspberry/Darwin Awards - designing a lander with six legs that is still able to topple is almost an accomplishment in itself.
No, the design is fine. Problem was using untested experiment as a primary sensor.
 
If you look at the design geometry, it *intuitively* (pun fully intended) appears top heavy, i.e. the dry CG is relatively high in comparison to the maximum distance between individual landing pads, which makes it intrinsically more sensitive to non-vertical touchdowns than stouter configurations.
 
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If you look at the design geometry, it *intuitively* (pun fully intended) appears top heavy, i.e. the dry CG is relatively high in comparison to the maximum distance between individual landing pads, which makes it intrinsically more sensitive to non-vertical touchdowns than stouter configurations.
But you don't know the actual mass distribution.
 

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