from the oops-sorry-about-that-excuse-me-my-bad dept.
HOUSTON—Steve Altemus beamed with pride on Tuesday morning as he led me into Mission Control for the Odysseus lander, which is currently operating on the Moon and returning valuable scientific data to Earth. A team of about a dozen operators sat behind consoles, attempting to reset a visual processing unit onboard the lunar lander, one of their last, best chances to deploy a small camera that would snap a photo of Odysseus in action.
"I just wanted you to see the team," he said.
[...]
"You can say whatever you want to say," Altemus said. "But from my perspective, this is an absolute success of a mission. Holy crap. The things that you go through to fly to the Moon. The learning, just every step of the way, is tremendous."
[...]
As has been previously reported, Intuitive Machines discovered that the range finders on Odysseus were inoperable a couple of hours before it was due to attempt to land on the Moon last Thursday. This was later revealed to be due to the failure to install a pencil-sized pin and a wire harness that enabled the laser to be turned on and off.
[...]
the last accurate altitude reading the lander received came when it was 15 kilometers above the lunar surface—and still more than 12 minutes from touchdown.
[...]
By comparing imagery data frame by frame, the flight computer could determine how fast it was moving relative to the lunar surface. Knowing its initial velocity and altitude prior to initiating powered descent and using data from the inertial measurement unit (IMU) on board Odysseus, it could get a rough idea of altitude.
[...]
Unfortunately, as it neared the lunar surface, the lander believed it was about 100 meters higher relative to the Moon than it actually was.
[...]
imagery from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which flew over the landing site, Intuitive Machines has determined that the lander came down to the surface and likely skidded. This force caused one of its six landing legs to snap. Then, for a couple of seconds, the lander stood upright before toppling over due to the failed leg.
[...]
"The question is, do you want to limp along and stay alive with everything shut off?" Altemus said. "Or do you want to go on the Quasonix, when you have the big ear listening, and get all the data you can? And that's the decision we made, to go get all the data. It's not how long you stay alive. It's how much information you glean from this mission."
[...]
In thinking back over the 12 days since the Intuitive Machines lander launched on a Falcon 9 rocket, Altemus said the mission experienced 11 crises. The first of these happened shortly after the Falcon 9 rocket's upper stage released the spacecraft into a translunar injection. The star trackers on board the spacecraft failed.
[...]
If one assumes there is a 70 percent chance of recovering from any one of these crises but you have to address 11 different crises on the way to the Moon, the probability of mission success is less than 2 percent."The reason we made it is right here, our people," he said. "The team we had, what they did, oh my God. They never quit. The perseverance, the resilience, just the power of the people we have in this team. That's why we're on the Moon."
Previously on SoylentNews:
UPDATE: The Odysseus has landed! - 20240223
Private US Moon Lander Successfully Launches 24 Hours After Flight Was Delayed - 20240216
Related Stories
Private US Moon lander successfully launches 24 hours after flight was delayed:
A US PRIVATE Moon lander has successfully launched 24 hours after its flight was delayed due to fuel issues. The Nova-C Odysseus lander, built by Texas-based space flight company Intuitive Machines (IM), could become the first private mission – called IM-1 – to land intact on the lunar surface.
The Moon lander had lift-off at 6.05am Irish time this morning atop SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral in Florida, SpaceX posted on X (formerly Twitter).
It comes a month after another US spacecraft, Peregrine, failed to touch down following a fuel leak. The failure of Peregrine, operated by US company Astrobotic, marked the third time a private company had been unable to achieve a soft landing on the lunar surface.
The Beresheet lander, built by Israel's SpaceIL, crashed during descent in 2019, while the Hakuto-R M1 lander, from Japanese company ispace, was destroyed while attempting to land in April last year.
Odysseus would be the first US Moon landing since the final mission of the Apollo programme – Apollo 17 – more than 50 years ago. Odysseus is a hexagonal cylinder about 13ft (4m) tall and 5ft (1.57m) wide and weighs 1,488lb (675kg).
It is part of Nasa's Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative, which aims to involve commercial companies in the exploration of the Moon as the space agency focuses on getting astronauts back there through its Artemis programme.
If all goes to plan, Odysseus could attempt a lunar landing on February 22. The landing site will be at Malapert A, a crater near the Moon's south pole. Once it is on the surface, Odysseus will operate for roughly two weeks, or one lunar day.
After half-century absence, U.S. returns to moon as lunar lander Odysseus touches down:
America has returned to the moon after a 52-year absence. The unmanned Odysseus spacecraft touched down on the lunar surface shortly before 6:30 p.m. EST Thursday.
"We can confirm without a doubt that our equipment is on the surface and we are on the moon. Odysseus has found a new home," said Dr. Tim Crain, mission director of the IM-1, the first American private venture to send a module to the moon.
It's the first time the United States has had a new presence on the lunar surface since NASA's Apollo 11 in July 1969.
The Intuitive Machines Odysseus lunar lander, nicknamed "Odie" or "IM-1," settled on the moon's surface after a day's long trek but immediately began experiencing communication problems, preventing the transmission of data.
The general tone of this story here and elsewhere seems to be that this heralds a new era of a commercial space industry, but until one can show that there is any commercial value to being on the Moon besides directly supporting NASA/ESA/etc., is this a watershed moment, or is this just slightly expanding the potential NASA/ESA/etc. contractor pool? --hubie
Previously: Private US Moon Lander Successfully Launches 24 Hours After Flight Was Delayed
(Score: 3, Insightful) by istartedi on Friday March 08 2024, @01:20AM
I guess a real pilot is still better at some things for now. You know Neil Armstrong had no trouble realizing he was still 100 meters up, and the computer was bleeping at him because the poor little beastie didn't have enough memory to run as many programs concurrently as were being requested (IIRC) but he was able to synthesize all that and realize it was OK to set down.
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(Score: 4, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Friday March 08 2024, @01:25AM (8 children)
and someone else is incredibly thorough.
Surely the explanation is be a bit more involved by that, because there's no way on Earth someone forgot to install a pin and a wire harness. That's the sort of thing that might possibly happen on the assembly line at a bad Chinese electrical appliance factory, but that sort of gross overlook just isn't a thing in the space industry. But if someone really did that, I think neither they nor their supervisor is likely to find work in that field ever again.
This impresses me though:
In short they engineered a way to compensate for the failure of the rangefinder. That's thorough. And it mostly worked, managing to drift only by 100 meters from 15 km up after 12 minutes without absolute altitude reading. Whoever did THAT piece of engineering deserves praise and a raise!
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 08 2024, @02:32AM (1 child)
I don't rule it out. A lot of these small companies getting into the space business are VC backed and are in the "fake it to you make it" stage hoping to get bought by a larger entity like everyone and their brother was doing in the 00's and 10's, hoping to get bought by Google. These guys merged with a special-purpose acquisitions company last year.
Look grandpa, integration and test procedures and checkouts are SO old fashioned and BORING. This is the 2020's. This is "a new era of space exploration!" We move fast and break things.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Friday March 08 2024, @06:43AM
Given that the US didn't land anything on the Moon for 52 years till the "move fast and break things" people got involved, maybe you should rethink your scorn. Think about it: Apollo 17 in 1972 and now. Where were the steely-eyed missilemen for the last half century of lunar exploration? Answer: there are strings to US public funding of lunar exploration that are more onerous than "fake it till you make it".
(Score: 4, Informative) by istartedi on Friday March 08 2024, @08:33AM (5 children)
that sort of gross overlook just isn't a thing in the space industry
Not sure if sarcasm or not. Regardless, let me tell you a little something about Hubble's primary mirror [wikipedia.org].
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(Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday March 08 2024, @05:06PM (4 children)
Thanks, an interesting read. They somewhat explain what happened, but don't fully explain how the mistake happened.
I think everyone could learn more about project management, weaknesses, managerial flaws, ways to improve, if they'd publish a deep look at how it all happened. I mean, it's pretty safe to assume it was time pressures by management who always push things, trying to maximize profit. I'd like to hope that the more light shed on these things, the more people will hopefully learn and improve processes and project managements. I know, I'm an optimist, but someone has to do it. :)
(Score: 4, Interesting) by istartedi on Friday March 08 2024, @06:01PM (3 children)
They had a lot of time to grind that mirror, so I don't think it was pressure to get the job done on time. It seems like it came down to a classic failure to understand the difference between precision and accuracy. They relied on a very precise testing device that had been assembled improperly. This created a surface that was very precise but not accurate. They rejected redundant tests from accurate but less precise equipment, because the improperly assembled test equipment was *more precise*. The workaday analogy is that I handed you a micrometer to check the width of a piece of lumber without telling you it was 5 mm off. You measure it with a couple rulers. It looks bad, but the micrometer is a precise measure and costs 100X more so of course it's better. Then when you do final assembly on your beautifully crafted cabinet, you wonder why it won't go together properly.
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(Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday March 08 2024, @06:51PM (2 children)
Yes, thanks, I get all of that. I like your distinction between precision and accuracy.
I hate the blame game, but somewhere the system broke, and I'd like to know how / where. Was it really a single person who made an "as-built" decision to not double-check the accuracy of the higher-precision instrument?
In fact I have, and use, a set of micrometers. Unless it's a crazy high-precision job, we generally assume the threads are okay. As you probably know, there's a tightening ring that'll cinch up and remove play in the threads. But, we still check it for zero, or if it's a bigger micrometer, we use a standard. And we know to clean the surfaces first. Point is, I don't assume the micrometer (or dial caliper) is accurate- I always zero it first. So, why wasn't the precision instrument, that they used to grind the mirror, first triple-checked?
All that said, I'm amazed at the accuracy of the optics in Hubble. IIRC there are motors or some mechanism that can tweak the mirrors a little to compensate for aberrations, thermal movement, etc. But not enough to compensate for the original focus problem.
Too bad they didn't make at least 2 or 3 of the original high-precision measurement things and cross-check. Best to have at least 2 people building / testing them.
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Friday March 08 2024, @10:23PM (1 child)
I don't have a quick answer to this, and time is constrained to track one down. Even though lives weren't on the line as in the Shuttle disasters, I wonder if a panel was later convened to determine how management failed; because I believe that allowing a single instrument overseen by one individual to gate the success of a project is a management failure. This may indeed be a matter of budgetary if not time constraints and that would come out in such a panel too--was there a general air of "I really wish we had more people on this team, but it's not in the budget"?
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(Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday March 08 2024, @10:31PM
Nor do I have time nor motivation to dig in. My point was: if they would be more up front with the failure info, it might help a lot of people and projects, and generally help science, technology, and society move forward, rather than running in place. My biggest disappointment with tech career is non-tech managers setting arbitrary schedules and timelines. I've never understood that- when there are so many unknowns, how and why do mgt. types think things just magically follow their schedules. It might turn out that the hands-on person would say he/she felt pressured to finish on a deadline. Or, it may just be a miscommunication- that the people were somehow told the precision instrument was accurate, you can trust it. I like to learn from these things. I think it helps some people, better managers anyway, to learn and improve management. What's that line about "those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it".
(Score: 3, Funny) by ChrisMaple on Friday March 08 2024, @03:55PM (2 children)
Homer's going to have to do a rewrite.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 08 2024, @04:49PM (1 child)
He's waiting for the Iliadeus mission.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday March 11 2024, @03:09PM
The Odyssey is eminently readable. The Iliad is a snore fest, do not recommend.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"