Intuitive Machines IM-1 Lunar Lander

[Yazata]

Well, it's down. Sorta.

First they lost their laser altimeter when its laser refused to power up. But one of the scientific payloads had its own laser rangefinder, so they decided they could use that with a software patch that they transmitted up.

The patch seemed to work as the descent burns seemed nominal and it got to within a kilometer altitude at low velocity. Descent controlled by the onboard flight computer seemed as planned.

But the time for landing came and went with no signal back from the lander. Eventually a European tracking station reported getting a very faint signal and the IM team are working the problem.

I'm suspecting that it might have done a SLIM and is on its side with its antennas in the wrong attitude.

[Yazata]

Good news! Intuitive Machines says:

https://twitter.com/Int_Machines/status/...3851148442

After troubleshooting communications, flight controllers have confirmed Odysseus is upright and starting to send data.

Right now, we are working to downlink the first images from the lunar surface.

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Very fortunate that when the lander lost its own laser altimeter, that its scientific payloads included this baby that NASA was testing on the flight. Precisely what was needed at that moment!

Guess your engineering experiment worked better than you expected, NASA. Not only was it proven to work in real life conditions, it actually saved the whole mission!

[Image: GG_It6iWkAAll9K?format=jpg&name=small]

[Yazata]

Eric Berger is on the case:

https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/02/a-...ns-remain/

[C C]

Eric Berger is on the case:

https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/02/a-...ns-remain/

I'm surprised no redundancy was already built-in deliberately, that luck like that (a science payload) had to be relied upon. Given the amount of money spent on landers to begin with, and their tendency (at least with respect to other nations) to suffer problems or outright fail. Why risk the financial loss and waste of engineering/mission time by gambling on minimalism (no back-up).

[Yazata]

IM says:

"Odysseus is alive and well. Flight controllers are communicating and commanding the vehicle to download science data. The lander has good telemetry and solar charging.

We continue to learn more about the vehicle’s specific information (Lat/Lon), overall health, and attitude (orientation)."

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Eric Berger is on the case:

https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/02/a-...ns-remain/

I'm surprised no redundancy was already built-in deliberately, that luck like that (a science payload) had to be relied upon. Given the amount of money spent on landers to begin with, and their tendency (at least with respect to other nations) to suffer problems or outright fail. Why risk the financial loss and waste of engineering/mission time by gambling on minimalism (no back-up).

One of the speakers on the NASA livestream was asked a similar question and answered this way.

They hope to pay roughly 1/10 as much for one of these Commercial Lunar Payload Services landers once they are manufactured in quantity by multiple companies and are flying regularly, than they would have to pay for custom-built gold and jewel encrusted government made landers. So if they purchase 10 of these new-space missions for the price of one of the more traditional kind, and three or four of them fail, they are still getting 6 or 7 missions for the price of one.

NASA gets cheaper trips to the Moon for small payloads and scientific instruments, while they simultaneously help to support a valuable national space industry and all the creative engineering talent that go into it. Win-win.

[Yazata]

Video of today's Intuitive Machines/NASA press conference in Houston.

Well we know the reason for the lander's weak radio signal. It seems that the lander copied Japan's SLIM and is toppled over on its side. At first they thought it was upright since telemetry indicated that residual fuel was settled on the bottom of the fuel tanks. But further analysis showed that was stale telemetry data and the more recent telemetry shows fuel settled on the side of the fuel tanks.

But apart from the weak signal, the lander seems to be working well. It's responding to commands and downloading data. The solar panels are enabling its batteries to charge and it's currently at 100% charge. Most of the scientific instruments it carried are working, though I'd guess that some that expected an unobstructed view are on side that's now facing the ground.

They still intend to download photos of the lunar surface.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?533822-1/n...conference

[Yazata]

Eric Berger visited the Intuitive Machines headquarters in Houston today, got shown around by the company CEO, and published an extraordinary description of the harrowing difficulties that Intuitive Machines encountered getting its lander to the Moon. Eleven different crises, each bad enough to doom the mission.

We've heard about how the lander's laser altimeter refused to work. And we've heard that they used an experimental NASA payload instead. Except that isn't exactly true because the NASA payload couldn't communicate with the flight computer in real-time.

So the lander was essentially trying to land without an altimeter. Its autonomous flight computer had some idea based on its onboard cameras, but it wasn't precise. And as it approached the Moon the lander believed that it was higher than it actually was. So it hit hard, skidded, and one of its landing legs snapped.

It stood upright for a few moments with a missing leg, then toppled over. That left its main solar panel in shadow. A smaller solar panel was still working, but not producing enough power to operate the lander and its more powerful boadband radio at the same time. And the weak radio they were getting was gibberish. It turned out that the antennas weren't pointing correctly after it toppled over, and some of antennas were bouncing their signals off the Moon while others weren't, so they were getting kind of an echo effect. The Team was able to correct for this and started getting telemetry.

The lander had six NASA payloads and five are operating. The sixth, a camera to watch the interaction of the lander's engine with the lunar regolith seems to have broke in the hard landing. Most of the private payloads are also working.

The question became how to get the payloads' data back to Earth. That requires the broadband radio, but operating it with only the small solar panel will drain the battery and perhaps kill the lander. But they opted to fire up the more powerful radio anyway, so as to get as much scientific data from the payloads as possible. They also downloaded some great photos that Eric Berger was shown.

NASA and IM plan a news conference to discuss all this and release the photos at 2 PM EST tomorrow on NASA TV.

Not bad for a little company with ~250 employees. Eric Berger says he is reminded of SpaceX in its earliest days. NASA apparently is pleased with how it went, particularly with how well Intuitive Machines handled each challenge as it came. So expect Intuitive Machines to get more NASA contracts, they're small but they have the "Right Stuff".

Eric Berger's story

https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/02/it...etry-data/

[Yazata]

https://plus.nasa.gov/scheduled-video/na...on-update/

[Yazata]

Today they downloaded the last data they could get, then commanded the lander to enter hibernation mode to see if it can survive the intense cold of the lunar night. They will try to wake it up in ~2 weeks when the Sun rises again.

Artist's conception graphic by Tony Bela

[Image: GHfKyiraIAA8PY0?format=jpg&name=4096x4096]

[Yazata]

Intuitive Machines calculated that their lander should be receiving enough solar energy by March 20 to power up. They started listening for it to phone home, but heard nothing.

So at 10:30 AM CDT on March 22, 2014, Odysseus ("Oddie") was declared dead.

https://twitter.com/Int_Machines/status/...4174077144