The Heavens

The Heavens

Landing on the Moon Isn’t EasyThe Odysseus spacecraft took this “selfie” while passing over the near side of the moon, a short time before landing on its side. Photo Credit: Intuitive Machines - ReutersLast month, the Japanese space agency tested a moonlander designed to arrive at a precise location near the moon’s south pole. They hit their target, but the vehicle was traveling too fast to handle the sloping surface and SLIM (Smart Lander for Investigating Moon) landed upside down. Oh well, the agency said, we got to where we wanted to be. The craft wasn’t equipped with the equipment needed to do any practical discovery work.This month, Odyssey, the first lander sent to the moon by a private American company, Intuitive Machines (IM), apparently was not traveling quite vertically when it got to the moon’s surface (did it graze a rock?) and the vehicle landed on its side. This meant the craft’s antennae were not aiming directly at the earth and

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Carl J. Butz

Carl J. Butz

February 29, 2024

Landing on the Moon Isn’t Easy

Odysseus.jpgThe Odysseus spacecraft took this “selfie” while passing over the near side of the moon, a short time before landing on its side. Photo Credit: Intuitive Machines - Reuters

Last month, the Japanese space agency tested a moonlander designed to arrive at a precise location near the moon’s south pole. They hit their target, but the vehicle was traveling too fast to handle the sloping surface and SLIM (Smart Lander for Investigating Moon) landed upside down. Oh well, the agency said, we got to where we wanted to be. The craft wasn’t equipped with the equipment needed to do any practical discovery work.

This month, Odyssey, the first lander sent to the moon by a private American company, Intuitive Machines (IM), apparently was not traveling quite vertically when it got to the moon’s surface (did it graze a rock?) and the vehicle landed on its side. This meant the craft’s antennae were not aiming directly at the earth and communications with earth have been less than desired. But, again, the owners of Odyssey weren’t too upset. The mission is likely to end in a few days because “at this landing site the sun will move beyond our solar arrays, in any configuration, in approximately nine days,” according to IM’s chief technology officer, Dr. Tim Cain. And, since the frigid, two-week-long lunar night is likely to destroy the craft’s electronic system, the odds of communications reviving again are slim.

Yes, colonization of the moon will be slow and expensive.

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