Moon lander Odysseus tipped sideways on lunar surface but 'alive and
well'
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[February 24, 2024]
By Steve Gorman and Joey Roulette
(Reuters) -The moon lander dubbed Odysseus is "alive and well" but
resting on its side a day after its white-knuckle touchdown as the first
private spacecraft ever to reach the lunar surface, and the first from
the U.S. since 1972, the company behind the vehicle said on Friday.
Houston-based Intuitive Machines also revealed that human error led to a
failure of the spacecraft's laser-based range finders, how engineers
detected the glitch by chance hours before landing time, and how they
improvised an emergency fix that saved the mission from a probable
crash.
Although the Odysseus made it to the surface intact on Thursday,
analysis of data by flight engineers showed the six-legged craft
apparently tripped over its own feet as it neared the end of its final
descent, company officials said at a briefing the next day.
The spacecraft is believed to have caught one of its landing feet on the
uneven lunar surface and tipped over, coming to rest sideways, propped
up on a rock at one end, said CEO Stephen Altemus, whose company built
and flew the lander.
Still, all indications are that Odysseus "is stable near or at our
intended landing site," close to a crater called Malapert A in the
region of the moon's south pole, Altemus told reporters.
"We do have communications with the lander," and mission control
operators are sending commands to the vehicle, Altemus said, adding that
they were working to obtain the first photo images from the lunar
surface from the landing site.
A brief mission status report posted to the company's website earlier on
Friday described Odysseus "alive and well."
The company had said shortly after touchdown on Thursday that radio
signals indicated Odysseus, a 13-foot-tall hexagonal cylinder, had
landed in an upright position, but Altemus said that faulty conclusion
was based on telemetry from before the landing.
DOWNSIDES OF SIDEWAYS
Although the lander's sideways position is far from ideal, company
officials said that all but one of its six NASA science and technology
payloads were mounted on portions of the vehicle left exposed and
receptive to communications, "which is very good for us," Altemus said.
"We think we can meet all the needs of the commercial payloads" as well,
he added.
However, two of the spacecraft's antennae were left pointed at the
surface, a circumstance that will limit communications with the lander,
Altemus said.
Also the functionality of a solar energy panel on the top of Odysseus,
now facing the wrong way, is uncertain, but a second array on the side
of the spacecraft appears to be in working order, and the spacecraft's
batteries had been fully charged, he said.
The uncrewed robot spacecraft reached the lunar surface on Thursday
after a nail-biting final approach and descent in which a problem with
its navigation system surfaced, requiring flight controllers on the
ground to employ an untested work-around to avoid what could have been a
catastrophic crash landing.
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Intuitive Machines' Odysseus spacecraft passes over the near side of
the Moon following lunar orbit insertion on February 21, 2024, in
this handout image released February 22, 2024. Intuitive
Machines/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo
The original laser-powered range finders had been rendered
non-functional because company engineers at NASA's Kennedy Space
Center in Florida had inadvertently failed to unlock a safety switch
before the lander's launch to space last Thursday, Altemus said.
"That was an oversight on our part," he said, likening the
overlooked switch to a safety mechanism on a firearm.
The problem was only detected by happenstance a week later during
lunar orbit, with just hours to go before landing, when flight
controllers were troubleshooting a different issue.
Otherwise, they might only have realized the safety lock was still
on when it was time to power up the range finders during the last
five minutes of descent, mission director Tim Crain said.
Tensions mounted as engineers determined that existing software
aboard the spacecraft could not override the safety lock to activate
the range finders, company officials said.
Ultimately, engineers scrambled to write software directing the
lander instead to rely on an experimental NASA Lidar payload onboard
- a remote sensing system that uses rapid pulses of laser-like light
and their reflections to judge distances between objects.
Intended for use only as a technology demonstration, as well as a
possible backup, NASA's Lidar saved the day, though it was employed
under extreme duress.
"It's super high-stakes," former SpaceX mission director Abhi
Tripathi said. "The mission director has to make sure everyone does
their job, and does their job perfectly, almost like a conductor."
Crain said the spacecraft, burning a propulsion fuel of liquid
methane and liquid oxygen for the first time in space, "performed
flawlessly" during its seven-day flight to and in orbit around the
moon.
The condition of Odysseus was murky immediately after its landing.
It took some time after an anticipated radio blackout to
re-establish communications with the spacecraft and determine its
fate some 239,000 miles (384,000 km) from Earth.
When contact was finally renewed, the signal was faint, confirming
that the lander had touched down but leaving mission control
immediately uncertain as to the precise condition and position of
the vehicle, company officials said during a webcast of the event on
Thursday evening.
Crain said he believed that the payloads aboard the lander would be
able to operate for about nine or 10 days, after which sun will have
set on the polar landing site.
Shares of Intuitive Machines tumbled 30% in extended trade on
Friday, wiping out all their rally in Friday's market session after
the company said its moon lander had tipped over.
(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles and Joey Roulette in
Washington; Editing by Diane Craft)
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