It was moving sideways because the horizontal velocity vector was probably not nulled out to zero feet per seconds

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A person will seldom remember your exact words to him or her ,but they won't forget how you made them feel

Any lander with a high CG (Odie, Starship) is more of a concern; you absolutely have to kill all the horizontal speed for those puppies else problems are likely. Indeed, "short and squat" results in a smaller "Pucker factor."

As far as not mentioning the fact that it is on its side, that's typical government spin. IMO, ending up in the right orientation is necessary for a landing to be successful. They got 2 out of 3 - soft touchdown and signal/some data from the vehicle.

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Up next:
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Bill Cooke
NAR #31312
TRA #19705
SAM #0001
Huntsville, AL

My rocket blog
My rocket fleet

It seem the Intuitive Designs mission has reached its tipping point.
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I love sanding.

I know that neither NASA or IM has made ANY kind of an update to their websites about it since the day of the press conference. Nothing. But I did read where Intuitive Machines stock price dropped 30% after the CEO mentioned in that press conference that the lander was on its side.

Earl

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Earl L. Cagle, Jr.
NAR# 29523
TRA# 962
SAM# 73
Owner/Producer
Point 39 Productions

Rocket-Brained Since 1970

There's an update on the IM website this morning. They summarized the best features of their flight, and don't mention that the lander is on its side. IM achieved a landing that is "the furthest south any vehicle has been able to land on the Moon and establish communication with ground controllers."

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-Wolfram v. Kiparski
NAR 28643 - TRA 15520
MTMA Section #606 President

The best photo they could do is 30 meters above the surface of the moon and then one from the surface while it's on its side... and now it's powered down.

https://www.nbcnews.com/science/spa...ding-rcna140483

https://www.sciencealert.com/the-od...ed-over-but-why

https://news.erau.edu/headlines/eag...e-lands-on-moon

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John Simmons a.k.a. "Lakeroadster"
NAR 113985
My Fleet with Build Data: Lakeroadster's Rocket Shop

Eric Berger over at Ars Technica posted an article yesterday about the lander and the obstacles they had to overcome. One part piqued my interest:

The company has an incredible photo of this moment showing the lander upright, with the snapped leg and the engine still firing. Altemus plans to publicly release this photo Wednesday.

Guess they decided to not release it after all

Full article at https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/...altimetry-data/

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More images released during the press conference today, including the one Bob Austin mentioned in his post above, with the lander engine still blasting away.

NASA blog link: https://blogs.nasa.gov/artemis/2024...cience-updates/


Earl

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__________________
Earl L. Cagle, Jr.
NAR# 29523
TRA# 962
SAM# 73
Owner/Producer
Point 39 Productions

Rocket-Brained Since 1970

So saying "break a leg" when wishing them luck was not a good idea...


Bill

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It is well past time to Drill, Baby, Drill!

If your June, July, August and September was like this, you might just hate summer too...

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: countdown begin cr dup . 1- ?dup 0= until cr ." Launch!" cr ;

Give a man a rocket and he will fly for a day; teach him to build and he will spend the rest of his days sanding...