Intuitive Machines: Athena Lander reached the moon – but appears to have fallen over

Intuitive Machines Athena Lander has reached the moon, but it seems to have fauln over. The lander still works, but it is not yet clear which parts of its mission it will still be able to perform.

The spacecraft launched on board a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from NASAS Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Cape Canaveral, Florida, February 27. It landed on March 6, but this was not entirely successful and its exact rent and orientation on the lunar surface is still unclear.

“We don’t think we in the right attitude on the moon’s surface once again,” said Intuitive Machine’s CEO Stephen Altemus at a press conference shortly after landing. This is a similar result as the company’s last attempt to land on the moon with its Odysseus room vessel. It marked the first time that a private company had landed a spacecraft on the lunar surface, but it tilted into its and was unable to send back much data.

Athena has a number of scientific instruments, but perhaps the most important thing of this regulations and our live to explore a new field (Trident), a NASA experience designed to drill up to a meter through the Moon’s Earth. It is intended to take samples from underground and analyze their content, look for wateris and other chemical compounds.

“This experience marks the milestone of the opinion as it will be the first robot drilling activity behavior in the Moon’s south pole,” Jacqueline Quinn said at a press conference on February 25. If Trident Doe still works, “it’s an important step toward understanding and exploiting lunar resources to support future investigation,” she said.

As part of his mission, Athena wore several rover with it to the moon. One of those called Grace after computer scientist and mathematician Grace jumps is designed to jump around the surface as opposed to any rover that has come in front of it, and fires small boosters to jump up to 100 meters in the air and travel at a distance 200 meters. Grace is intended to explore the strange, permanently shady craters of the moon.

Athena’s operators have been able to send craftsmands and beat it and its scientific payload on and off, as well as downlink some data back to Earth. The solar panels also work to charge Landers electronics. It seems to be good news, but the team is still working on which of the instruments will be able to achieve their scientific goals, Altemus said.

This mission is part of a broad push for increased exploration of the moon, partly in preparation for planned human missions during the race in the next decade. Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Lander came right to the moon on March 2nd, and resilience lands from the Japanese company Ispace is on the way.