An onslaught of challenges and a basic human error came close to dooming Odysseus, the first private spacecraft to have landed on the moon.
Executives at Intuitive Machines — the Houston-based company operating the first US vehicle to reach the moon in 52 years — have revealed that instruments critical to guiding it to a safe landing were rendered inoperable due to a safety switch not being disarmed before launch last week.
The moment of realisation was “like a punch in the stomach — that we were going to lose the mission,” said Steve Altemus, the company’s CEO.
Despite understanding on Thursday that Odysseus had landed upright nonetheless, data from the vehicle now suggests “in fairly certain terms” that one of its feet hit a rock, tripping it up and tipping it over. The spacecraft is now believed to be lying sideways, reclining on a rock, but still functioning and communicating with mission control while sending data from the surface.
• Private spacecraft makes first US moon landing since 1972
• The Times view on the Odysseus landing: New Moon Rising
Advertisement
In the first media briefing since the landing near Malapert A crater, Altemus revealed that owing to a safety switch not being tripped before the spacecraft was launched a week ago, the laser rangefinders — which assist with hazard-avoidance and guiding the lander to a safe touchdown — did not work.
He likened the switch to a safety lock on a gun that simply needs to be flipped to the “off” position before use. In aeronautics, ground checkout crews use a “remove before flight” tag as a reminder.
“These rangefinders had been tested and would have worked had we caught that and removed it,” he said.
Patching the problem by switching to back-up sensors on board involved hacking software commands on the fly. It was a process that ordinarily would have taken a month to calculate, test and fine-tune.
“Our team basically did that in an hour and a half and it worked. It was one of the finest pieces of engineering I’ve ever been affiliated with,” said Dr Tim Crain, the chief technology officer.
Advertisement
Engineers were “cool under pressure … real space cowboys,” he added.
“If you think back to the Apollo days, there wasn’t one mission that went perfectly. You have to be adaptable, innovative — and you have to persevere.”
