this post was submitted on 08 Mar 2025
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Athena spacecraft declared dead after toppling over on moon (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 3 days ago by cm0002 to c/technology
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[โ€“] Warl0k3 8 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Landing a fridge on those spindly little legs did seem a bit... optimistic...

[โ€“] Cocodapuf 4 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

I really don't understand the tall moon lander strategy... I mean, if you're going to design it with a high center of gravity, then design it to fall over... Just use two landing legs instead of four, to ensure it falls over the right way. Then you put the solar panels on the side, so that when it topples over they're facing up.

I've literally done this in Kerbal space program, it's a pretty reliable landing system if your probe is tall.