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Athena spacecraft declared dead after toppling over on moon

theguardian.com

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Re: Athena spacecraft declared dead after toppling over on moon

#61

Post by pbronez »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #50
parsimo2010 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The craft that tipped over last year (Odysseus) was also made by Intuitive Machines (IM). Firefly's Blue Ghost landed on the moon last week without tipping over, proving that a modern commercial company can do it. Kind of embarrassing for IM which is 0 for 2. I'm sure there are all kinds of reasons/excuses for why IM's landers fell over and I'm sure their mission profiles are different from Firefly's, but from a high…

> craft that tipped over last year (Odysseus) was also made by Intuitive Machines (IM) Have they published a root-cause analysis?

Apparently last time their laser rangefinder was turned off groundside and thus wasn’t available during landing.

This time they remembered to turn it on, but it didn’t work very well.

Re: Athena spacecraft declared dead after toppling over on moon

#62

Post by itishappy »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #55
6d6b73 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spaceship fiasco will delay Artemis so much that there is no need to even consider landing on the Moon in the next 10 years.

> Spaceship [ sic ] fiasco will delay Artemis Artemis II is entirely delayed by Lockheed’s Orion spacecraft. Not SpaceX’s Starship.

I wouldn't say entirely. Starship isn't going to be involved in Artemis II, but Artemis III supposed to take humans to the moon in December 2025. Nobody's on schedule.

Re: Athena spacecraft declared dead after toppling over on moon

#63

Post by RandomBacon »

sho_hn wrote: post #24
nine_k wrote: post #2

One similarly structured craft (thin and tall) reached the Moon a year ago, and also eventually toppled. Maybe next missions will feature less tower-shaped designs and more crab-shaped designs, at least during the landing phase.

Which gives me great amusement about the current human spaceflight plan to land upright Starship on the moon, and lower astronauts from the top of what is effectively a tower-like 13-story building (52.1m without landing legs, at 9m tube width) using some kind of elevator solution. To put things into perspective, this is roughly the same height as the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and with landing legs extended probably abo…

> how do you not topple over

Projectile grappling-hooks to embed into nearby ground then winch the line taught? Just have to make sure all are launched at the same time with force vectors that cancel out. Maybe even launch them before touchdown so it doesn't topple over during landing if one of the feet land on a random rock.

Re: Athena spacecraft declared dead after toppling over on moon

#64

Post by JumpCrisscross »

itishappy wrote: post #62
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Spaceship [ sic ] fiasco will delay Artemis Artemis II is entirely delayed by Lockheed’s Orion spacecraft. Not SpaceX’s Starship.

I wouldn't say entirely. Starship isn't going to be involved in Artemis II, but Artemis III supposed to take humans to the moon in December 2025. Nobody's on schedule.

> wouldn't say entirely. Starship isn't going to be involved in Artemis II

So entirely.

Artemis III is being delayed by Artemis II. We expect Starship to delay III. But so far, 100% of the delays have been caused by Orion.

Re: Athena spacecraft declared dead after toppling over on moon

#65

Post by baq »

nine_k wrote: post #2

One similarly structured craft (thin and tall) reached the Moon a year ago, and also eventually toppled. Maybe next missions will feature less tower-shaped designs and more crab-shaped designs, at least during the landing phase.

The guys designing this never played kerbal space program or something. My first mun lander looked like theirs and of course it fell over after landing. If something doesn’t work in KSP, it probably deserves a looking at in the real world.

Re: Athena spacecraft declared dead after toppling over on moon

#66

Post by simne »

joeevans1000 wrote: post #26

Not being critical here, just a question from my curious naivety (lunar exploration is hard): these landers seem spindly and unforgiving, landing-wise. Are there bouncy ball type craft that could be made, or something that can reorient or push itself up after landing? I have a vague memory of something like that being used on Mars.

Size is important. For thin atmosphere or vacuum planet, airbag approach is optimal for small size lander, but for big size space crane is optimal.

Unfortunately, at the moment I could not suggest what is small and what is big for Moon.

And for about IM, things could be even worse, as they are limited as commercial company (NASA lander could use government money to achieve much higher budget and have much more possibilities to do same thing).

Re: Athena spacecraft declared dead after toppling over on moon

#67

Post by itishappy »

RandomBacon wrote: post #63
sho_hn wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which gives me great amusement about the current human spaceflight plan to land upright Starship on the moon, and lower astronauts from the top of what is effectively a tower-like 13-story building (52.1m without landing legs, at 9m tube width) using some kind of elevator solution. To put things into perspective, this is roughly the same height as the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and with landing legs extended probably abo…

> how do you not topple over Projectile grappling-hooks to embed into nearby ground then winch the line taught? Just have to make sure all are launched at the same time with force vectors that cancel out. Maybe even launch them before touchdown so it doesn't topple over during landing if one of the feet land on a random rock.

My vote is for a large BattleBots style flipper that they flop their rover around with until it falls in their preferred orientation.

Re: Athena spacecraft declared dead after toppling over on moon

#68

Post by JumpCrisscross »

pbronez wrote: post #61
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> craft that tipped over last year (Odysseus) was also made by Intuitive Machines (IM) Have they published a root-cause analysis?

Apparently last time their laser rangefinder was turned off groundside and thus wasn’t available during landing. This time they remembered to turn it on, but it didn’t work very well.

That’s a proximate-cause analysis. If the root of their problem is a rangefinder, what happened that caused them to consistently miss with it?

The lack of credible comments strikes me as someone socking the answer: they’ve committed to a stacked format that is inherently unstable. If they can’t get an answer out before the next budget is passed, their contracts should be cancelled.

Re: Athena spacecraft declared dead after toppling over on moon

#70

Post by [deleted] »

itishappy wrote: post #67
RandomBacon wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how do you not topple over Projectile grappling-hooks to embed into nearby ground then winch the line taught? Just have to make sure all are launched at the same time with force vectors that cancel out. Maybe even launch them before touchdown so it doesn't topple over during landing if one of the feet land on a random rock.

My vote is for a large BattleBots style flipper that they flop their rover around with until it falls in their preferred orientation.

[deleted]
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