Hopefully someone at Intuitive Machines pores over the data and and design plans and makes significant changes that minimize the opportunity for this to happen the third time around, assuming NASA gives them that opportunity.
If their lander is indeed top-heavy then they have some design issues to overcome. Perhaps adding a set of outriggers that deploy just before touchdown and detach or fold up on command once the lander is deemed to be in a stable orientation. Even landing it as a ball with air cushions that deflate once it comes to rest has to be preferred to simply keeping it the same and hoping for a nice flat spot to land.
> pores over the data and and design plans and makes significant changes
And then publishes it. The fact that they have precise renders still published of their next lander [1] is a bit telling about their engineering approach.
The first one tipped over because a sensor failed. I suppose we don't know why this one did yet but why do these sorts of failures bring out the caveman in everybody suggesting completely giving up on the whole concept and doing something "dumb" that doesn't require control systems? Just because control systems feel scary and you might not personally know how to design them yourself doesn't mean they aren't great when they work. Falcon 9 lands upright pretty reliably but even in the early days of that when it wasn't working, people were saying they should give up and use a giant net or towers or something for it to dumbly fall into. It's like seeing a car crash and saying "Why don't we just have giant balloons around cars to absorb the impact when they crash or guide rails along the roads so they won't go off course if the driver falls asleep?". Yea we could but it's both cheaper and possible to do it smarter.
If you were writing software and it had a bug, you wouldn't throw out the whole thing and replace it with a spreadsheet, you'd fix the bug.
Hopefully they go out of business for having ignored the advice of the entire scientific community simply because they wanted to pull some SpaceX-type-shit on the Moon and ended up costing everyone over a hundred million dollars and probably a setback of years, all because of their CEO's ego.
doodlebugging|1 year ago
If their lander is indeed top-heavy then they have some design issues to overcome. Perhaps adding a set of outriggers that deploy just before touchdown and detach or fold up on command once the lander is deemed to be in a stable orientation. Even landing it as a ball with air cushions that deflate once it comes to rest has to be preferred to simply keeping it the same and hoping for a nice flat spot to land.
JumpCrisscross|1 year ago
And then publishes it. The fact that they have precise renders still published of their next lander [1] is a bit telling about their engineering approach.
[1] https://www.intuitivemachines.com/missions
foxglacier|1 year ago
If you were writing software and it had a bug, you wouldn't throw out the whole thing and replace it with a spreadsheet, you'd fix the bug.
criddell|1 year ago
Or design it assuming it will tip over on landing.
KennyBlanken|1 year ago