Originally Posted by
jolihokistix
It has been reported that they had an external camera but did not deploy it.
I suspect the external camera was the EagleCam mentioned just upthread ... that was supposed to be popped off the vehicle at very low altitude to take some pics of the actual lander in flight just before touchdown but wasn't deployed (as per the press release). Even if it had been deployed as planned
AFAIK the images wouldn't have been sent back to Earth in real time....
....wonder if a self-righting feature, such as performing a last-second jets-upward flipover, with a hemispherical lander base giving a low centre of gravity, might solve their puzzle of how to get the thing to stand upright?.
Very old tech, been done....that's how the Soviets cracked the problem with the very very first Lunar soft lander, Luna 9, back in 1966...however the lander element of that vehicle that thing was the size of a beachball (link to info on that at foot of post) , I'm not sure how well the technique would work with larger vehicles or as you say be compatible with something designed to take-off again. Properly designed landing gear has worked fine for Surveyor, Apollo and quite a few later landers.
"Or would thick lunar sand make that a no-go?"
The surface layer of fine dust, which has a consistency more like talc than sand, hasn't been found to be particularly thick anywhere. I think the general experience from the Apollo missions was no more than maybe 10 cm depth most places....
Luna 9
.