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One similarly structured craft (thin and tall) reached the Moon a year ago, and also eventually toppled. Maybe next missions will feature less tower-shaped des
by nine_k 2y ago
One similarly structured craft (thin and tall) reached the Moon a year ago, and also eventually toppled.
Maybe next missions will feature less tower-shaped designs and more crab-shaped designs, at least during the landing phase.
- lawlessone 2y agomaybe make it like a hamster ball. edit: just realized my own stupidity, a ball would be very hard to land..
- ge96 2y agoA mars lander was like that but air bags
- _shantaram 2y agothree actually
- card_zero 2y agoThat worked OK for some Mars rovers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Exploration_Rover#Airbags https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Exploration_Rover#Airbags See also the section "uprighting", further down the page - they used a tetrahedral shell with a sensor so it knew which side was down and could lever itself upright.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- rolph 2y agothat ball would bounce for a long time and roll for a while until stopping, and unfolding into tetrahedral hemisegments, each in its desired orientation.
- andyjohnson0 2y ago> One similarly structured craft (thin and tall) reached the Moon a year ago, and also eventually toppled. Presumably it's that shape to fit in the fairing of a Falcon 9?
- exe34 2y agoYou can fit a crab sideways in the Falcon 9.
- Polizeiposaune 2y agoNo, that's not why. I found dimensions and a picture of IM-1 here: https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraft/display.action?id=IM-1-NOVA https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nmc/spacecraft/display.action?id... The IM-1 lander was 1.57 meters wide and 4m tall, but based on the picture I think the width doesn't include the legs. The Blue Ghost lander also launched on an F9; it's 2m high and 3.5m wide, and it landed without falling over. (dimensions from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Ghost_Mission_1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Ghost_Mission_1) The F9 payload envelope dimensions can be found on page 79 of: https://www.spacex.com/media/falcon-users-guide-2021-09.pdf https://www.spacex.com/media/falcon-users-guide-2021-09.pdf Dimensions shown appear to be <inches> [ <millimeters> ] - the bulk of the space is a cylinder with a radius of "180.020 [ 4572.5011 ]" which I read as just over 4.5 meters in diameter; the cylindrical part is just over 6.6 meters high (and then you get into the conical section at the nose). The space inside the fairing is bigger than this but there is empty space between it and the payload to ensure they don't come into contact due to vibrations, etc., during launch. So IM-1 could well have been wider and shorter and still fit on the F9.
- ForOldHack 2y agoAbsolutely no substitute for research and the facts. Thanks for the research.
- Polizeiposaune 2y agoCorrection: (too late to edit): cylinder with a diameter of "180.020 [ 4572.5011 ]"
- tekla 2y agohttps://www.intuitivemachines.com/post/intuitive-machines-im-2-mission-lunar-lander-encapsulated-and-scheduled-for-launch https://www.intuitivemachines.com/post/intuitive-machines-im... Look at the lander. Pray tell, if you want it shorter, where is everything supposed to go?
- aylmao 2y agoIt could be two landers, one stacked on top of the other for takeoff, but separate for landing EDIT: or a horizontal lander, packed on it's side for takeoff. I'm sure it's more complicated than that, but landing something this tall seems quite complicated too in the first place.
- rolph 2y agogo bigger this could be a pancake stack that separates into a swarm of puck like units according to some sequence
- throwup238 2y agoYou’d be paying the extra mass cost of landing gears for each pancake - something has to absorb the impact of landing or they’ll just break apart. These landers already operate at the margin.
- ForOldHack 2y agoYou do not need as many landing gears. No meat bags to protect, but you would need separate propulsion units, less the fuel for return trip. Landing gear is light weight. What was the landing gear ratio in other NASA unmanned probes? How did the asteroid interception land? This is probe #2 from the company - NASA did not get there until Apollo 11 they are not the same... Computers are almost a billion times faster.
- ForOldHack 2y agoThis is off the hook out side the box. If you landed functional units and the had some mechanism to connect them back up, you could reduce the force of landing... Oh wait.. this is exactly the plan for colonisation. Seriously read digital apollo
- parsimo2010 2y agoThe craft that tipped over last year (Odysseus) was also made by Intuitive Machines (IM). Firefly's Blue Ghost landed on the moon last week without tipping over, proving that a modern commercial company can do it. Kind of embarrassing for IM which is 0 for 2. I'm sure there are all kinds of reasons/excuses for why IM's landers fell over and I'm sure their mission profiles are different from Firefly's, but from a high level perspective I'm sure senior leaders at NASA are reconsidering giving any new contracts to IM.
- yieldcrv 2y ago> I'm sure senior leaders at NASA are reconsidering giving any new contracts to IM. at NASA, and DOGE, when they catch wind of it bagholders on reddit trying to understand the 50% drop have not been open to anything rational that explains the 50% drop so far I've gotten "You are blinded by dumb hate." for pointing out that $LUNR's unintuitive machines getting contracts from Nasa are their only business plan, as if this is a partisan thing
- ok_dad 2y agoShit, NASA does space stuff, it fails sometimes! Do we want to only fund things we know to be 100% easy to do? And don't fucking tell me, "we already landed on the moon once, how hard can it be?" because this shit is really fucking hard and takes lots of cash and a lot of what apppears to be "waste" or "failure" on a first order approximation, but in reality is actually "learned knowledge". I can't believe people think they're going to "make america great again" by cutting funding for all the stuff that makes America an economic, cultural, and academic powerhouse.
- sho_hn 2y agoWhich gives me great amusement about the current human spaceflight plan to land upright Starship on the moon, and lower astronauts from the top of what is effectively a tower-like 13-story building (52.1m without landing legs, at 9m tube width) using some kind of elevator solution. To put things into perspective, this is roughly the same height as the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and with landing legs extended probably about the same width as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_HLS#/media/File:HLS_Starship_rendering.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_HLS#/media/File:HLS_S... https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/nasa-astronauts-test-spacex-elevator-concept-for-artemis-lunar-lander/ https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/nasa-astronauts-test-spac... Sure, there's lots of details to consider, e.g. center of gravity, overall weight, maximum possible duration to hover and ability to accurately steer and pick your landing spot. But the inherent difficulty in "how do you not topple over" is definitely there, and it's clear the proposed Starship lander will have to outperform these IM landers significantly. That said, if you want to scale out payload to the surface I guess you have to (which however eats into your center of gravity advantages from having lots of engines at the bottom, too).
- RandomBacon 2y ago> how do you not topple over Projectile grappling-hooks to embed into nearby ground then winch the line taught? Just have to make sure all are launched at the same time with force vectors that cancel out. Maybe even launch them before touchdown so it doesn't topple over during landing if one of the feet land on a random rock.
- baq 2y agoThe guys designing this never played kerbal space program or something. My first mun lander looked like theirs and of course it fell over after landing. If something doesn’t work in KSP, it probably deserves a looking at in the real world.
- jimnotgym 2y agoThat should be an official NASA spec. Must not fall over on kerball.
- magicalhippo 2y agoAnyone playing KSP learns that. So the question then is, what did their tall and skinny design optimize for?
- ForOldHack 2y agoMinimal launch cross sectional area. Tall and skinny. ( Please check previous documentation ) I was completely off. “This profound opportunity to make history isn’t solely built on technology – it’s established through the relentless dedication of our people, who have turned the Company’s words about a reliable cadence of lunar missions into action.” Looks like the company is in alignment with NASA. I am actually impressed. I would now look for a failure in one of the leg compressors.
- nine_k 2y agoMinimal launch cross-section is equally achievable for an oblong landing craft that is designed to fall on a predetermined side, with landing gear deployed to support it in the horizontal configuration. Imagine a truck with a jet engine that lands on the rear end, then falls onto its wheels, because it's designed to operate when positioned horizontally.
- spelunker 2y agoI mean, eventually everything is crab right?
- smj-edison 2y agoMandatory xkcd 2314.
- ForOldHack 2y agoCrabs cook well, but do not fly well,not drop in the vacuum of space well. But by no means dismiss this idea. It is interesting, I just do not know how right now. Their exoskelton legs. If the craft rotated like a cat,and landed like one with a dozen crab legs...where is Adam Savage when you need him?
- vpribish 2y agonot 'similarly structured' but the immediate sibling craft - the same design from the same company. not "eventually toppled" but broke a leg and landed on its side right away. Definitely the next mission will be the same craft - they have 2 more in the works.
- russfink 2y agoThis! Don’t base your designs on 1950’s sci-fi movies with big glistening rockets standing 50’ tall touching down on angled fins.