Intuitive Machines’ IM-2 lander is likely tipped over on the Moon
https://x.com/JPMajor/status/1897762078825312597
Intuitive Machines’ IM-2 lander is likely tipped over on the Moon
https://x.com/JPMajor/status/1897762078825312597
27 Comments
Press Conference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-mMJxIttBc
– IMU showing Z-axis is vertical which suggests vehicle is on its side (exactly the same as IM-1)
– Major questions about what payloads (if any) will be operable in this orientation
– Batteries charging, power is positive, stable communications with lander
Dang! At this point, it seems like a good survival mechanism to have a pusher arm at the top of the spacecraft that can push it back over to the vertical. /s
Sigh.
CLPS has been such a resounding success with 1 out of 5 attempts actually making it to the Moon in a useful configuration.
WTF are we doing??
Sucks for IM and the payloads… but it’s honestly pretty funny
I shouldn’t laugh but the posts and comments are bear a carbon copy of IM1.
Well, at least they’re consistent. Still, you’d have thought they’d have figured out how to not do this again.
Maybe they could put the next one in a giant ball. Then just let it roll around, with most of the weight to one side so it will just naturally settle in the right orientation. Then deflate the ball.
Or they could put the thing in a cube cage with the ability to reorient everything inside the cage. Then the cage could just plop down on any side and it would flip around like an aerotrim.
Yeah, why are they building these landers that don’t have the right COG? Seems juvenile tbh
Build in self-righting boners on each face of the vehicle.
Sometimes I wonder why space craft are never fitted with flippers or something to push them selves up if something like this happens
I would try try again. No point in learning from your first attempt?
Hey, any landing you can walk away from is a good one.
Armchair engineer here. How many times are they going to make the same mistakes lol. Seems crazy to me that they didn’t improve the design to prevent this from happening. How hard can it be to add some widget that prevents tipping or reorients itself after tipping. Better yet, design it so that tipping is irrelevant, like a spherical shape.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
|Fewer Letters|More Letters|
|——-|———|—|
|[CLPS](/r/Space/comments/1j56r7x/stub/mgetpih “Last usage”)|[Commercial Lunar Payload Services](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_Lunar_Payload_Services)|
|[CoG](/r/Space/comments/1j56r7x/stub/mgf903g “Last usage”)|Center of Gravity (see CoM)|
|CoM|Center of Mass|
|[IM](/r/Space/comments/1j56r7x/stub/mgf9lrl “Last usage”)|Initial Mass deliverable to a given orbit, without accounting for fuel|
|[IMU](/r/Space/comments/1j56r7x/stub/mgf15cp “Last usage”)|Inertial Measurement Unit|
|[JAXA](/r/Space/comments/1j56r7x/stub/mgektb9 “Last usage”)|Japan Aerospace eXploration Agency|
|[MER](/r/Space/comments/1j56r7x/stub/mget34a “Last usage”)|Mars Exploration Rover (Spirit/Opportunity)|
| |Mission Evaluation Room in back of Mission Control|
|[RCS](/r/Space/comments/1j56r7x/stub/mgfh5qd “Last usage”)|Reaction Control System|
|Jargon|Definition|
|——-|———|—|
|[periapsis](/r/Space/comments/1j56r7x/stub/mgf95qq “Last usage”)|Lowest point in an elliptical orbit (when the orbiter is fastest)|
Decronym is now also available on Lemmy! Requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
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Feel bad for the team figured it would be better this time
Imagine you were in a manned mission and your lander were in its side…
Would strategically placed hydraulic arms help in a situation like this? That way, it can put itself right side up in the event that the landing doesn’t go smooth.
Again? Can’t they build them with flippers to self-right like on Robot Wars?
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Note to Elon. Maybe your stupid super tall Starship is not be the best vehicle to land on the soft uneven lunar surface. Timberrr…🤣
man real tough for the IM team. But they built a hell of a lander. It fell over yet again, and it’s still working, charging, sending data.
Can’t imagine the frustration they must be going through.
Can’t they just rotate the telemetry 90 degrees.
If their CEO would speak candidly or give us the facts I would have 1000% more confidence in this company.
Looks like they didn’t learn much from the first fiasco 1 year ago…exactly the same lander configuration, very high CG, clearly no provisions to avoid repeating the issue…smh
Was discussing this with an actual rocket scientist friend.
Friend: …yeah, so anyway that’s why landing is hard.
Me, an idiot with 2000 hours in Kerbal space program: Yeah because as you eject propellant your com changes so you gotta feather the throttle to compensate and use gyro to control your lateral velocity because the moon surface has like tiny hills that make contact hard.
Friend: oh hey yeah, I thought you were an idiot or something but that’s actually pretty insightful.
Me: yeah the only idiot here is the one who forgot to quicksave before changing the periapsis.
Friend: Quick what?
Me: what?
It’s astonishing to think that we can’t achieve the same success rate with lunar landings as we could 56 years ago. Five times out of six, Apollo lunar modules landed safely on the moon without any human intervention. The Russians achieved a soft lunar landing with an unmanned vehicle as far back as 1966.
Is it just because nowadays we’re trying to do it more cheaply?
What if we attached a Srimec to the side of the lander?