Athena spacecraft declared dead after toppling over on moon
www.theguardian.com
Robotic private spacecraft touched down about 250 meters from its intended landing site on Thursday

Even if it landed correctly, why would they plan a solar powered mission to the moon when our next lunar eclipse is in like 5 days?

  • over_clox@lemmy.worldOP
    32·
    12 hours ago

    Quite true. Strangely, here on Earth they have smart robots that you can literally kick over sideways, and their sensors and hydraulics and stuff kick right in and set them back upright.

    If you’re gonna dump hundreds of millions of dollars into such a project, why not utilize all known, available, and proven technology?

    • LastYearsIrritant@sopuli.xyzEnglish
      13·
      11 hours ago

      Weight. That’s the only actual answer.

      It’s extremely expensive to send weight to the moon, everything you list is more weight.

        • LastYearsIrritant@sopuli.xyzEnglish
          4·
          9 hours ago

          You’re looking at it with hindsight. Sure it feels like spending another million $ designing, testing, and adding additional weight, along with removing weight from other parts looks like the right decision now.

          Every design makes compromises, and every failure looks stupid when looking at the end result. The team had decisions to make and if they had the extra time and money, then making the existing design more robust with more testing and reliability would have been the better solution.