Post-Landing Terrain Assessment of the Intuitive Machines-1 Landing Site
Last month, Intuitive Machines achieved a landmark touchdown in the Moon’s southern polar region, marking the United States as the first country to accomplish such a landing. However, despite this significant achievement, the Nova-C lander tipped over due to several technical issues. Until the actual landing, the precise target site had largely been ‘unknown,’ aside from a vague announcement specifying Malapert- A as the landing area. This post provides a series of analyses on the actual landing site.
Intuitive Machines announced that the lander's final touchdown coordinates were at (-80.13, 1.44), confirming it landed in the Southern Polar region.
Images from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera team confirmed Odysseus completed its landing at 80.13°S and 1.44°E at a 2579 m elevation. After traveling more than 600,000 miles, Odysseus landed within 1.5 km of its intended Malapert A landing site, using a contingent… pic.twitter.com/CaMSSO4Gfb
— Intuitive Machines (@Int_Machines) February 26, 2024
Amid much anticipation, it was previously announced that IM-1 would land at Malapert A, though this was not the actual intended landing site. The Nova-C lander eventually touched down approximately 30 km east of it, on the rim of a degraded crater. The landing site was on a slope of about 12.7° and at an elevation of 2587 meters, according to my terrain analysis. This finding is generally in line with-in the error margin of the officially released figures.
From the LRO blog,
Odysseus came to rest at 80.13°S, 1.44°E, 2579 m elevation, within a degraded one-kilometer diameter crater where the local terrain is sloped at a sporty 12°
My terrain analysis utilizes the elevation and slope model of the South Pole derived from LOLA, at a resolution of 20 meters per pixel. The data products
