APOD: To the Moon (2024 Feb 24)

[APOD Robot]

To the Moon

Explanation: Intuitive Machines' robotic lander Odysseus has accomplished the first U.S. landing on the Moon since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972. Launched on a SpaceX rocket on February 15, the phone booth sized lander reached lunar orbit on the 21st and touched down on the lunar surface at 6:23 pm ET on February 22nd. Its landing region is about 300 kilometers north of the Moon's south pole, near a crater designated Malapert A. The lander is presently collecting solar power and transmitting data back to the Intuitive Machines' mission control center in Houston. The mission marks the first commercial uncrewed landing on the Moon. Prior to landing, Odysseus’ camera captured this extreme wide angle image (landing legs visible at right) as it flew over Schomberger crater some 200 kilometers from its landing site. Odysseus was still about 10 kilometers above the lunar surface.

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[alter-ego]

Well, the news is Odie tipped over during landing while having an unplanned horizontal motion. It's condition still appears good, and may still get enough sunlight for the solar array power.

[gvann]

The "phone booth sized" reference is likely to be meaningless to most younger people. I work at AT&T and, in our museum, we have a beautiful phone booth from the 1950's with a working pay phone in it. But I have not seen one outside of a museum in decades. We need to come up with an equivalent size reference suitable tor the twenty-first century. Any suggestions?

[Rauf]

The "phone booth sized" reference is likely to be meaningless to most younger people. I work at AT&T and, in our museum, we have a beautiful phone booth from the 1950's with a working pay phone in it. But I have not seen one outside of a museum in decades. We need to come up with an equivalent size reference suitable tor the twenty-first century. Any suggestions?

I think I'm younger than almost all people here in Asterisk, and I know what a phone booth is. Then again, I'm not living in the United States.
But maybe A police box is the same size?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_box

[RocketRon]

Or a (not so large) refrigerator ?

[johnnydeep]

The "phone booth sized" reference is likely to be meaningless to most younger people. I work at AT&T and, in our museum, we have a beautiful phone booth from the 1950's with a working pay phone in it. But I have not seen one outside of a museum in decades. We need to come up with an equivalent size reference suitable tor the twenty-first century. Any suggestions?

I think I'm younger than almost all people here in Asterisk, and I know what a phone booth is. Then again, I'm not living in the United States.
But maybe A police box is the same size?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_box

The Dr. Who Tardis is the size of a large phone booth, but maybe only very nerdy young'uns would know that reference.

[johnnydeep]

Ah, the "Malapert A" crater. A fitting name for an impudent little machine to land near:

Malapert and Shakespeare

Malapert debuted in English in the 15th century, was a favorite of Shakespeare, and is still used sporadically today. The prefix mal-, meaning "bad" or "badly" and deriving from the Latin malus, is found in many English words, including malevolent and malefactor. The second half of malapert comes from the Middle English apert, meaning "open" or "frank." Apert further derives from the Latin word apertus ("open"), which gave us our noun aperture (meaning "an opening"). Putting the two halves together gives us a word that describes someone or something that is open or honest in a bad way—that is, in a way that is rudely bold. The noun malapert also exists and means "a bold or impudent person."

With a tip of my hat to Neufer!

[Chris Peterson]

The "phone booth sized" reference is likely to be meaningless to most younger people. I work at AT&T and, in our museum, we have a beautiful phone booth from the 1950's with a working pay phone in it. But I have not seen one outside of a museum in decades. We need to come up with an equivalent size reference suitable tor the twenty-first century. Any suggestions?

An outhouse?

[johnnydeep]

The "phone booth sized" reference is likely to be meaningless to most younger people. I work at AT&T and, in our museum, we have a beautiful phone booth from the 1950's with a working pay phone in it. But I have not seen one outside of a museum in decades. We need to come up with an equivalent size reference suitable tor the twenty-first century. Any suggestions?

An outhouse?

And in that same class are those "porta potty" "booths" used at construction sites, which are often seen when just driving around, unlike a more traditional outhouse:

https://www.poorjohnstoilets.com/a-comp ... tion-sites

The humorously nicknamed "Vatican" from a huge papal event over a decade ago also comes to mind.

[wilddouglascounty]

Seems that the designers of these landers haven't mastered the challenge of fitting that lander into the relatively narrow cylinder of a rocket, maximize the amount of instrumentation you can pack into it, AND do it in such a way as to have a low center of gravity so it can land on uneven surfaces/slopes without tipping over. Having outrigger legs literally tripped this lander up, as it maybe got caught on a boulder, damaging it or causing it to tip, so maybe those aren't the greatest ideas. I wonder if the cylindrical shape would be more stable if the lander was designed to be laying down in the first place? It could be made roll-proof by putting most of the weight on one side, tho maybe that would make for a lopsided launch? At any rate, it seems like lower gravity makes it harder to make a lander stable on an uneven/sloped surface, so they need to have a lower center of gravity/more stable design than they'd need on earth.

[johnnydeep]

Seems that the designers of these landers haven't mastered the challenge of fitting that lander into the relatively narrow cylinder of a rocket, maximize the amount of instrumentation you can pack into it, AND do it in such a way as to have a low center of gravity so it can land on uneven surfaces/slopes without tipping over. Having outrigger legs literally tripped this lander up, as it maybe got caught on a boulder, damaging it or causing it to tip, so maybe those aren't the greatest ideas. I wonder if the cylindrical shape would be more stable if the lander was designed to be laying down in the first place? It could be made roll-proof by putting most of the weight on one side, tho maybe that would make for a lopsided launch? At any rate, it seems like lower gravity makes it harder to make a lander stable on an uneven/sloped surface, so they need to have a lower center of gravity/more stable design than they'd need on earth.

Well, I'm sure the very smart engineers thought of dozens of ways to make the landing a success. But sometimes things go wrong anyway. The only way to ensure that the landing orientation doesn't matter: make it a leg-studded solar panel covered sphere (or perhaps a cube)!. But even then, the landing will still be a failure if the landing speed is too great. "Space is hard."

For reference, the link that alter-ego posted had this explanation for the "tip over":

The landing came with a little extra dash of flavor as well, the team announced today. While they're still analyzing data, it's pretty clear that Odysseus didn't land vertically as intended, Altemus and Tim Crain, Intuitive Machines co-founder and CTO, said during today's briefing.

During its final descent, Odysseus was supposed to be traveling about 2 mph (3.2 kph) in the vertical direction and 0 mph horizontally. But the data show it was actually moving at roughly 6 mph (10 kph) vertically and 2 mph (3.2 kph) horizontally, Altemus said.

He offered a theory about what happened: Perhaps, while coming down at those slightly off-nominal speeds, Odysseus caught one of its landing legs in a crevice or other piece of lunar terrain.

As a result, "we might have fractured that landing gear and tipped over gently," he said.

[Tekija]

Seems that the designers of these landers haven't mastered the challenge of fitting that lander into the relatively narrow cylinder of a rocket, maximize the amount of instrumentation you can pack into it, AND do it in such a way as to have a low center of gravity so it can land on uneven surfaces/slopes without tipping over. Having outrigger legs literally tripped this lander up, as it maybe got caught on a boulder, damaging it or causing it to tip, so maybe those aren't the greatest ideas. I wonder if the cylindrical shape would be more stable if the lander was designed to be laying down in the first place? It could be made roll-proof by putting most of the weight on one side, tho maybe that would make for a lopsided launch? At any rate, it seems like lower gravity makes it harder to make a lander stable on an uneven/sloped surface, so they need to have a lower center of gravity/more stable design than they'd need on earth.

A low center of gravity and more widespread legs made 5 of 7 Surveyor soft Moon landings successes.

[Dorothea Fox Jakob]

What is the red quarter round in the lower left hand of the 2024 Feb 24 APOD? DFJ in Toronto

[Chris Peterson]

What is the red quarter round in the lower left hand of the 2024 Feb 24 APOD? DFJ in Toronto

Looks like lens flare- internal reflections of the Sun inside the camera optics.

[It still tipped over]

Clever of Intuitive Machines (a publicly traded company). Their machine tipped over, but here's a photo for the ages where the legs seem to rest on the lunar surface.

Ok, not a problem. But, on a scientifically-minded website, do we have to measure size in units of "phone booths"? Is there an assumption out there that the broader public can't deal with feet, inches or (shock horror) meters and centimeters? The practice seems to be spreading in the press, after years of small satellites being measured in Space News in units of "small fridges" (and even "small fridges found in dorms"), recently I've seen ERS-2 (the one that just reentered over the Pacific) described as "the size of five tigers" and "the weight of an adult rhino". And I'm not even sure humor was involved.

I expect "the size of many many handfuls of adult snails" or "the weight of cart full of bricks" to become SI units anytime.

[Chris Peterson]

Clever of Intuitive Machines (a publicly traded company). Their machine tipped over, but here's a photo for the ages where the legs seem to rest on the lunar surface.

Ok, not a problem. But, on a scientifically-minded website, do we have to measure size in units of "phone booths"? Is there an assumption out there that the broader public can't deal with feet, inches or (shock horror) meters and centimeters? The practice seems to be spreading in the press, after years of small satellites being measured in Space News in units of "small fridges" (and even "small fridges found in dorms"), recently I've seen ERS-2 (the one that just reentered over the Pacific) described as "the size of five tigers" and "the weight of an adult rhino". And I'm not even sure humor was involved.

I expect "the size of many many handfuls of adult snails" or "the weight of cart full of bricks" to become SI units anytime.

This is America. We don't need no stinkin' SI units. What are you, some kind of commie?