Intuitive Machines-1, first commercial lunar lander

[2hats]

Intuitive Machines’ uncrewed autonomous Nova-C lander, Odysseus, is due to soft land at Malapert A crater in the southern polar region of the Moon (about 10° from the lunar south pole), tonight at 2324 UTC. The lander mission, IM-1, is planning for seven days of operation (NASA science payloads) before the freezing temperatures kill the on-board systems. The lander should eject a small camera (EagleCam) during the descent to provide third-person views of the touchdown (to be made available post-landing, so I understand).

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Live coverage begins on NASA TV from 2200 UTC. Descent orbit insertion should occur at 2211 UTC (e2a: now not necessary due to the the earlier course correction), followed by terrain navigation, with powered descent initiated at 2312 UTC beginning the 12 minute ride to the lunar surface.

 

[2hats]

It would appear to have landed but the high gain antenna pointing is sub-optimal (weak signal). It's either facing the wrong way or the lander is at some unintended orientation.

 

[danny la rouge]

Just been watching coverage.

 

[T & P]

What is the long game for the company behind this? No immediate monetisation of what is a very impressive but surely expensive feat. So are they trying to land a contract with NASA or other agencies to supply lunar landers in the future? Or perhaps develop a next generation craft that can scoop up samples and return them to Earth to sell?

 

[PTK]

.

 

[2hats]

Matters appear to be improving.

 

[Crispy]

What is the long game for the company behind this? No immediate monetisation of what is a very impressive but surely expensive feat. So are they trying to land a contract with NASA or other agencies to supply lunar landers in the future? Or perhaps develop a next generation craft that can scoop up samples and return them to Earth to sell?

This is a CLPS (commercial lunar payload services) mission. This is a new program modelled on the succesful commercial cargo/crew services programs for the ISS. NASA says, "We have these instruments; please send them to the moon and we don't care how. Name your price."

The price is much lower than an in-house lander, but with greater risk (the previous CLPS mission's fuel tank ruptured and ended up ditching in the ocean).

This landing was amazing. The primary landing cameras failed, so they used one of the onboard experiments' cameras instead, having uploaded some cobbled-together code at the last minute.

A little US company makes history by landing on the Moon

“We’re not dead yet."

arstechnica.com

 

[Elpenor]

Any news of the wardrobe choices of the scientists involved?

 

[2hats]

As per speculation, probably lying on its side, which would likely compromise high gain antenna pointing (and thus data transfer rates).

 

[A380]

Actual footage earlier today:

 

[WouldBe]

As per speculation, probably lying on its side, which would likely compromise high gain antenna pointing (and thus data transfer rates).
View attachment 413380

Have they mixed up sine and cosine as they are 90° out of phase and that's 2 moon Landers that have ended up on their side.

 

[2hats]

Radio observations appear to confirm that the high gain antenna signal is most likely weak due to off-axis pointing such that the signal being picked up is not direct but has first reflected off the lunar surface (implied by a polarisation change)†. This will indeed produce poor signal-to-noise and so impact data transfer rates. They will have to get moving to grab science data before lunar night towards the end of this week.

Separately, telemetry appears to suggest that EagleCam (not deployed during the landing) is operational and it is now proposed to eject this in order to get some imagery of the lander and so better understand the current orientation and shed light on what might have happened. It is anticipated that the payload will touch down on the lunar surface a few metres away from the lander Odysseus.

Separately, LRO has been tasked to image the lander to determine where exactly it has landed, so those images might be available in the next couple of days.

† e2a: Or could simply be a very much off Earth-pointing axis weak signal, possibly not even a side-lobe, dominated by linear polarisation. Either way - TLDR - the high gain antenna is, unsurprisingly, pointing the wrong way which translates to poor data rates.