Granted, according to the article I just linked, there were issues. The system that was meant to determine if the lander was right side up or not failed and they had to improvise an alternative. It might have worked, but as of the posting of said article, they aren’t sure if the lander landed on it’s feet or fell over onto its side or what.
We’ll find out soon enough. Here’s hoping we get good news. Also, here’s hoping we get pictures. It’s been a long time since we’ve had new pictures from the moon. The last US lander was in 1972, but there have been others since then. Other countries have had more recent successes. I think India sent the last lander to land near the South pole. They were 600 kilometers away and this new one is shooting for about 300 kilometers away.
Quando i videogiochi erano veramente difficili c'era uno che poteva essere definito hardcore. Si chiamava #LunarLander. Il gioco ha fatto soffrire le persone nel 1979 fino a trasformare i giocatori in #astronauti che prendevano il controllo di un modulo di #allunaggio in costante avvicinamento alla superficie lunare con una perfetta ricostruzione fisica:
“During the period of descent, an unexpected behavior occurred with the lander’s altitude measurement. While the lander estimated its own altitude to be zero, or on the lunar surface, it was later determined to be at an altitude of approximately 5 kms above the lunar surface. After reaching the scheduled landing time, the lander continued to descend at a low speed until the propulsion system ran out of fuel. At that time, the controlled descent of the lander ceased, and it is believed to have free-fallen to the Moon’s surface.”
Mysterious moonquake traced to Apollo 17 lunar lander base (www.space.com)
The Apollo 17 lunar lander base is creating small-scale moonquakes on a daily basis.