“If we had a laser rangefinder, the landing would have been successful.”
moontipper
Over the past two months, two lunar landers have successfully survived harrowing journeys to the moon’s surface, but both failed to land, resulting in their respective tumbles.
Last month, NASA’s Odysseus lander, built and operated by Houston-based space company Intuitive Machines, continued to move sideways after touching down, scraping along the surface and eventually tipping over. .
as new york times report, that may have something to do with its considerable height of 14 feet, including the solar array. Something this tall and heavy should have a hard time keeping straight.
Unfortunately, the lander was also missing some important data. During the descent, the laser equipment used to measure altitude stopped working and the lander continued to roll, sealing her fate.
“With a laser rangefinder, the landing would have been successful,” said Intuitive Machines CEO Steve Altemus. told reporters last week.
trip and tumble
Philip Metzger, former NASA engineer tweeted his explanation Why does the lunar environment make everything more bittersweet?
“The lateral motion that a lander of that size could tip is only a few meters per second under the moon’s gravity,” he concluded.
As a result, Metzger argued that on the Moon the width of the bottom of the landing gear should be 2.5 times as wide as on Earth.
“surely, [NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services] “Contractors know this and are designed that way. What I’m saying is that the moon does this to the hardware so when things go wrong (as is actually happening) ), it tilts more frequently than Earth does,” he argued.
Of course, Intuitive Machines was well aware that the lander was quite tall. Engineers had to consider a variety of factors during the design, including overall weight and insulation surface area.
Artemus said: new york times Last year, it was discovered that its height was mainly due to the composition of propellant tanks of liquid methane and oxygen, which were stacked on top of each other for balance.
Spreading the load across a large number of tanks could have added significant complexity and increased potential points of failure, according to the report.
But Odysseus’ height also had potential advantages. If Odysseus had been upright, the solar array at the top would have been able to stay out of the moon’s long shadow longer as the sun set.
But considering its tragic fall, it never got the chance to stand tall and proud.
Learn more about the lander: New photos show catastrophic damage to NASA’s lunar lander
