Apollo 13 in real-time & other Space stuff

[Devil]

Well crap.

Breaking: Satellite Failure Scuttles First-of-Its-Kind In-Space Test of...

It probably wasn’t going to do anything anyway. We’ll be stuck with Elon rockets for a while.

[Devil]

Next lunar lander up in about 2.5 hours, ~6 PM EST.

LIVE! NASA IM-1 Lunar Lander Tracker

I was confused about the timing but I think this is the latest info

https://x.com/NASA/status/1760753504853835883?s=20

[Devil]

Congratulations being exchanged but beats me what exactly the mission status is.

I mean they have landed and are receiving some kind of signal, so that’s good.

[nunnehi]

Maybe it’s laying on its side beaming, ‘I’ve fallen and I can’t get up’

[otatop]

https://twitter.com/Int_Machines/status/1760838333851148442

It’s apparently OK

[nunnehi]

Confirmed upright hahaha, they were thinking the same thing

[Devil]

Not upright. Maybe “upright”. Wtf, at first I thought this news might be a joke.

Intuitive Machines: Odysseus Moon lander 'tipped over on touchdown'

https://x.com/SpaceNosey/status/1761153524094919141?s=20

[otatop]

Landing sideways on the moon is so hot right now.

[nunnehi]

Hahahaha nailed it

[Devil]

Maybe tall and skinny is not the way to go. Starship might have to add airbags.

[Trolly]

Anyone who’s played Kerbal Space Program knows tall ships tip over super easy.

[Devil]

X

[otatop]

It turns out that Odysseus landed on the Moon without any altimetry data

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. As a result, the company scrambled to rewrite its software to take advantage of three telescopes on a NASA payload, the Navigation Doppler Lidar for Precise Velocity and Range Sensing, for altimetry purposes.

While this software patch mostly worked, Altemus said Tuesday that the flight computer onboard Odysseus was unable to process data from the NASA payload in real time. Therefore, 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.

That left the spacecraft, which was flying autonomously, to rely on its optical navigation cameras. 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. But that only went so far.

“So we’re coming down to our landing site with no altimeter,” Altemus said.

Unfortunately, as it neared the lunar surface, the lander believed it was about 100 meters higher relative to the Moon than it actually was. So instead of touching down with a vertical velocity of just 1 meter per second and no lateral movement, Odysseus was coming down three times faster and with a lateral speed of 2 meters per second.

[Devil]

Man that brings back some unpleasant memories.

[amead]

FAA published TFRs for next Starship test flight, Thurs or Fri 7:50-10:30am EDT.

Excitement guaranteed.

[otatop]

IFT-3 license has been issued, 110 minute launch window opens in just over 10 hours.

[bobman0330]

Liftoff in 6 minutes!

SpaceX

[Devil]

I hope this thing goes because I already had too much coffee to go back to sleep.

[bobman0330]

So hard to believe that this thing is as big as a 35-story building, and it just blasts off at Mach 1

[bobman0330]

WTF clouds?!?!

EDIT: Actually, the three distinct, very narrow layers of clouds is pretty cool