Goodnight, Odysseus. Intuitive Machines' private moon lander goes offline — but could it rise again?

[Admin]

Intuitive Machines has shut down its robotic Odysseus lander, which last week became the first-ever private spacecraft to touch down softly on the moon.

Goodnight, Odysseus. Intuitive Machines' private moon lander goes offline — but could it rise again? : Read more

 

[Meteoric Marmot]

"Softly" is a bit of a stretch since it landed hard enough to bust a leg and topple onto its side.

 

[newtons_laws]

The article says "Just hours before touchdown, the mission team discovered that Odysseus' laser rangefinders, which were supposed to give the craft its altitude and horizontal-velocity readouts during the descent, weren't functioning. So, they devised a workaround, pressing into service an experimental LIDAR (light detection and ranging) instrument that NASA put on board the lander."

What the article doesn't mention is that a) Odysseus' laser rangefinders weren't functioning because a manually set safety switch had been left in the inhibit position on the launch pad prior to lift off b) the workaround to use NASA's LIDAR instrument was implemented in a very short timescale due to time constraints, all credit to Intuitive Machines but unfortunately as disclosed in the recent press conference they missed the fact that a data valid flag in the software had not been set so in fact Odysseus ignored the NASA LIDAR data and the landing only used the terrain image recognition software, which probably accounts for the somewhat harder than expected landing.

 

[Sadot]

Doubt it... Unlike the Japanese Probe my guess is that the IM team failed another checklist item and forgot to flip on the the switch that activated the low power battery mode

 

[drm1004]

In the silent expanse where dreams meet stars, Odysseus, a celestial child, embarks afar. With whispered prayers, we bid gentle flight, Awaiting the dawn of a brighter light.

Fear not, oh wanderer; this isn't farewell, Just a pause in the cosmic swell. Rest, dear Odysseus, 'neath Luna's embrace, Till the heavens call, continuing your cosmic chase.