Odysseus Broke his Leg Landing from an Overlooked Laser Switch

As the Odysseus Moon lander approaches its final hours, an unexpected development adds a twist to its narrative: during landing, one of its legs broke due to a series of errors stemming from a missed safety procedure on Earth prior to launch.

The IM-1 mission has witnessed a combination of accomplishments and challenges. Merely a week after seemingly flawless liftoff on February 14, it earned acclaim as the first successful American Moon landing in over fifty years. Moreover, it represented the maiden voyage of a privately owned and operated spacecraft to the Moon, and the first lander to utilize cryogenic fuels.

The Lander Topples Over Upon Landing

Regrettably, the lander also toppled over upon landing, ending up in a sideways position. This situation would have been problematic on its own, but it transpired that the fall stemmed from a series of events triggered by a single, minor error.

Intuitive Machines, the company that built and owns the Nova-C class Odysseus lander, reported that they inadvertently left a critical safety switch, responsible for activating the spacecraft’s laser landing navigation system, in the ‘off’ position.

Troubleshooting After Launch

Upon discovering this oversight post-launch, flight engineers devised a workaround by implementing a software patch. This patch enabled NASA’s Navigation Doppler Lidar experiment aboard the lander to take over the inactive system. However, a crucial data flag was overlooked, which would have allowed the software to assess the validity of the data.

Consequently, Odysseus was forced to rely primarily on its inertial guidance system and optical navigation algorithms. This meant that the lander lacked an altimeter to gauge its altitude as it descended toward the lunar surface.

It has been determined that Odysseus landed short of its intended landing site on higher terrain than planned by the mission team. Instead of executing a controlled descent, Odysseus descended at a faster rate than anticipated and also had lateral movement. As a result, the spacecraft impacted the lunar surface forcefully, causing one of its landing legs to snap.

Mission-Saving Impact

This incident could have prematurely ended the mission, but the broken leg absorbed some of the impact, and the engine continued to throttle, allowing Odysseus to tilt gently and come to rest on its helium tank at a 30-degree angle.

Despite the setback, Odysseus was able to charge its batteries via its solar panels, and all payloads, except for one camera experiment, remained operational and were transmitting data. However, the fall rendered the high-gain radio antenna inoperable, necessitating Mission Control to rely on the low-gain antenna and high-powered Earth-based receivers for data and image transmission, albeit at a significantly reduced rate.

Despite the challenges, Intuitive Machines has acknowledged that Odysseus is now in its final hours of operation. The lander’s solar panels will soon be in shadow, and even if they were not, the Sun would soon set at the landing site, subjecting the lander to the 14-day freezing lunar night, which it is unlikely to survive.

Read the original article on: new atlas

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