©Reuters. Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus spacecraft passes over the near side of the Moon after insertion into lunar orbit on February 21, 2024, in this image published February 22, 2024. Intuitive Machines/Handout via REUTERS/file Photo
By Steve Gorman and Joey Roulette
(Reuters) -The lunar lander nicknamed Odysseus is “alive and well” but resting on its side a day after its stunning landing and is the first private spacecraft to reach the lunar surface, and the first from the United States since 1972. the company behind the vehicle said Friday.
Houston-based Intuitive Machines also revealed how human error led to a failure of the spacecraft’s laser rangefinders, how engineers detected the problem by chance hours before landing, and how they improvised an emergency fix that saved the mission from a probable accident. .
Although the Odysseus made it to the surface intact Thursday, data analysis by flight engineers showed that the six-legged craft apparently tripped over its own feet as it neared the end of its final descent, they said company officials in a briefing the next day.
The spacecraft is believed to have caught one of its landing feet on the bumpy lunar surface and rolled over, coming to rest on its side, resting on a rock at one end, said CEO Stephen Altemus, whose company built and piloted the lander.
However, all indications are that Ulysses “is stable at or near the intended landing site,” near a crater called Malapert A in the Moon’s south polar region, Altemus told reporters.
“We have communications with the lander” and mission control operators are sending commands to the vehicle, Altemus said, adding that they are working to obtain the first photographic images of the lunar surface from the landing site.
A brief mission status report published last Friday on the company’s website described Ulysses as “alive and well.”
The company had said shortly after landing Thursday that radio signals indicated Odysseus, a 13-foot-tall hexagonal cylinder, had landed upright, but Altemus said the incorrect conclusion was based on telemetry before landing.
DISADVANTAGES OF SIDEWAY
While the lander’s lateral position is less than ideal, company officials said that all but one of its six NASA science and technology payloads were mounted on parts 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 commercial payloads as well,” he added.
However, two of the spacecraft’s antennas were left pointed toward the surface, a circumstance that will limit communications with the lander, Altemus said.
The functionality of a solar-power panel on top of the Odysseus, now facing the wrong direction, is also uncertain, but a second panel on the side of the spacecraft appears to be functional and the spacecraft’s batteries were fully charged. she said.
The uncrewed robot spacecraft reached the lunar surface Thursday after a challenging final approach and descent in which a problem emerged with its navigation system, requiring flight controllers on the ground to adopt an untested solution to avoid what could have been a catastrophic disaster. crash landing.
The original laser-powered rangefinders had been rendered nonfunctional because company engineers at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida inadvertently failed to unlock a safety switch before launching the lander into space last Thursday, Altemus said.
“It was an oversight on our part,” he said, likening the overlooked switch to a safety mechanism on a firearm.
The problem was only accidentally detected a week later during lunar orbit, a few hours after landing, when flight controllers were solving a different problem.
Otherwise, they might have only realized the safety lock was still engaged when it came time to turn on the rangefinders during the final five minutes of descent, mission director Tim Crain said.
Tensions rose when engineers determined that existing software aboard the spacecraft could not bypass the safety lock to activate the rangefinders, company officials said.
Ultimately, engineers rushed to write software to direct the lander, instead of relying on an experimental NASA Lidar payload on board, a remote sensing system that uses rapid pulses of laser-like light and their reflections to judge distances between objects.
Intended to be used only as a technology demonstration, as well as a possible backup, NASA’s Lidar saved the day, although it was deployed in extreme conditions.
“The stakes are very high,” said former SpaceX mission director Abhi Tripathi. “The mission director has to make sure that everyone does their job, and does it perfectly, almost like an orchestra conductor.”
Crain said the spacecraft, burning a propulsion fuel composed of liquid methane and liquid oxygen for the first time in space, “performed flawlessly” during its seven-day flight to and orbiting the Moon.
Odysseus’ condition was murky immediately after his landing. It took time after an expected radio blackout to reestablish communications with the spacecraft and determine its fate about 239,000 miles (384,000 km) from Earth.
When contact was finally renewed, the signal was weak, confirming that the lander had landed but immediately leaving mission control uncertain of the vehicle’s precise condition and location, company officials said during a webcast of the event Thursday evening .
Crain said he believes the payloads aboard the lander will be able to operate for about nine or 10 days, after which the sun will have set on the polar landing site.
Intuitive Machines shares plunged 30% in extended trading on Friday, erasing their entire rally in Friday’s market session after the company said its lunar lander had capsized.