Author Topic: Space. The Final Frontier. (Read 138092 times)

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.

"That little geometry made us hit a little harder than we wanted to," he said.

Ali the Baseball Cat · « **Reply #1407 on:** February 27, 2024, 05:37:29 pm »

Sounds like the Mars Climate Orbiter crash in the 90s...NASA and Lockheed weren't using the same units of measurement

GburgNatsFan · « **Reply #1408 on:** February 27, 2024, 07:18:35 pm »

Quote from: Ali the Baseball Cat on February 27, 2024, 05:37:29 pm

Sounds like the Mars Climate Orbiter crash in the 90s...NASA and Lockheed weren't using the same units of measurement

I think that the story was that Lockheed was reusing code which was written for yards, but interfacing with software written for meters...

HalfSmokes · « **Reply #1409 on:** August 07, 2024, 04:02:12 pm »

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/07/science/boeing-starliner-nasa-spacex.html

Has any company been as thoroughly destroyed by MBAs as Boeing?

Ali the Baseball Cat · « **Reply #1410 on:** August 07, 2024, 05:07:19 pm »

United certainly isn't rushing to retire all of the old 757s and 767s in the fleet.

Quote from: HalfSmokes on August 07, 2024, 04:02:12 pm

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/07/science/boeing-starliner-nasa-spacex.html

Has any company been as thoroughly destroyed by MBAs as Boeing?

imref · « **Reply #1411 on:** December 28, 2024, 03:03:24 pm »

Highly recommend the new Apollo 13 documentary on Netflix. All told through video and audio from nasa as well as old interviews with those involved.

JCA-CrystalCity · « **Reply #1412 on:** December 28, 2024, 04:03:47 pm »

My Dad had diodes and transistors on the Apollo capsules and service modules. I forget how cold he tested them at, but it was colder than space. He worried about the reputational hit if his parts were involved in a failure. He said he felt pretty confident during that flight that his parts did not cause a problem.

imref · « **Reply #1413 on:** November 06, 2025, 09:37:10 am »

Alien spacecraft?

https://futurism.com/space/astronomer-probability-alien-craft-comet

HondoKillebrew · « **Reply #1414 on:** April 01, 2026, 06:47:23 pm »

Awesome.

imref · « **Reply #1415 on:** April 01, 2026, 09:24:28 pm »

saw earlier that if you are under the age of 53 then you have never been alive when humans flew more than 250 miles from earth. This mission is slated to be the furthest that humans have ever traveled (around 253,000 miles or so if I heard correctly).

Ali the Baseball Cat · « **Reply #1416 on:** April 02, 2026, 10:46:28 am »

If you're under 53 you may not have heard Gil Scott-Heron either

blue911 · « **Reply #1417 on:** April 02, 2026, 12:40:11 pm »

Quote from: Ali the Baseball Cat on April 02, 2026, 10:46:28 am

If you're under 53 you may not have heard Gil Scott-Heron either

Cause he couldn’t get on television?

English Natsie · « **Reply #1418 on:** April 02, 2026, 05:08:13 pm »

I suppose he would not be televised...

JCA-CrystalCity · « **Reply #1419 on:** April 02, 2026, 05:13:12 pm »

Quote from: English Natsie on April 02, 2026, 05:08:13 pm

I suppose he would not be televised...

imref · « **Reply #1420 on:** April 04, 2026, 12:18:27 pm »

Only a few days left for everyone to get into planet of the apes costumes.

Ali the Baseball Cat · « **Reply #1421 on:** April 04, 2026, 12:30:42 pm »

Aren't we already in them??

Quote from: imref on April 04, 2026, 12:18:27 pm

Only a few days left for everyone to get into planet of the apes costumes.

Count Walewski · « **Reply #1422 on:** April 04, 2026, 09:50:28 pm »

https://www.businessinsider.com/artemis-astronauts-microsoft-outlook-accessing-email-nasa-mission-control-problem-2026-4

I was shocked to learn that the Artemis II spacecraft is equipped with the Microsoft Office suite of tools and that astronauts these days have Outlook. I am of course not surprised at all that Outlook crashed.

What a destruction of innocence moment. Learning that astronauts also have to deal with Outlook is like learning that your parents sometimes fight, or learning that your priest or rabbi sometimes cusses.

imref · « **Reply #1423 on:** April 05, 2026, 12:16:24 am »

The bigger issue is the toilet vent, which has frozen shut, trapping odors inside Orion.

JCA-CrystalCity · « **Reply #1424 on:** April 05, 2026, 08:16:51 am »

Quote from: imref on April 05, 2026, 12:16:24 am

The bigger issue is the toilet vent, which has frozen shut, trapping odors inside Orion.

I thought they had those diapers? I'd have figured they had a hamper or something as a backup