Lying sideways on the moon, the Athena lander is declared dead

By Jackie Wattles, CNN

(CNN) — Intuitive Machines, the Houston-based company that was set to deliver a historic water-hunting mission to the moon’s south pole, announced Friday that its Athena lander has powered down just one day after arriving at the lunar surface.

Athena was expected to operate for about 10 days before powering down as lunar night fell over the spacecraft’s landing site at Mons Mouton, a plateau that lies about 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the south pole.

But photographs delivered by the lander before it powered down confirmed the vehicle is lying on its side.

“With the direction of the sun, the orientation of the solar panels, and extreme cold temperatures in the crater, Intuitive Machines does not expect Athena to recharge,” the company said in a statement. “The mission has concluded and teams are continuing to assess the data collected throughout the mission.”

Intuitive Machines, however, highlighted that, although Athena did not operate as intended, the lander was able to briefly operate and transmit data after touchdown. That made the mission the “southernmost lunar landing and surface operations ever achieved.”

Intuitive Machines also said that Athena was “able to accelerate several program and payload milestones, including NASA’s PRIME-1 suite, before the lander’s batteries depleted.”

PRIME-1, which includes a drill that was expected to dig into the lunar surface to hunt for water, was able to move, according to a statement from NASA that states the device “demonstrated the hardware’s full range of motion in the harsh environment of space.”

Sensors on board PRIME-1, which were designed to analyze lunar soil for signs of water ice, also turned on and detected “elements likely due to the gases emitted from the lander’s propulsion system,” NASA said.

“Empowering American companies to deliver science and tech to the Moon on behalf of NASA both produces scientific results and continues development of a lunar economy,” said Joel Kearns, deputy associate administrator for Exploration in the Science Mission Directorate, in a statement. “While we’re disappointed in the outcome of the IM-2 mission, we remain committed to supporting our commercial vendors as they navigate the very difficult task of landing and operating on the Moon.”

The company did not specifically address other payloads that were on board the Athena lander. But Colorado-based Lunar Outpost, which provided a four-wheeled rover that had been expected to drive off the lander about six hours after Thursday’s touchdown, said in a post on social media platform X that it was not able to deploy.

Some of the science and tech instruments onboard Athena were able to operate during transit to the moon and in lunar orbit before yesterday’s touchdown, said NASA and Intuitive Machines officials at a Thursday news conference.

Tim Crain, Intuitive Machines’ chief technology officer, highlighted that Athena captured close-up images of the moon’s south pole region, calling them an exciting development that will aid scientists’ understanding of this crater-ridden area of the moon.

Moon landing challenges

Athena’s premature shutdown is reminiscent of Intuitive Machines’ last lunar mission, which put a lander named Odysseus in the same pockmarked south pole region in February 2024.

Odysseus also landed on its side but was able to operate for about six days, though its antennae were pointing in an inopportune direction, making it difficult to collect large quantities of data.

The company also revealed Friday that it was able to determine Athena touched down about 820 feet (250 meters) from its intended landing site. At a Thursday news conference about Athena’s status, Intuitive Machines officials had said only that the vehicle’s exact landing site was unknown, but it likely did not land within a 164-foot-wide (50-meter) zone the company had been targeting.

Intuitive Machines developed the Athena lunar lander as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, under which the agency doles out relatively cheap fixed-price contracts to private sector companies in an effort to spur innovation and drive down the cost of getting robotic exploration vehicles to the moon.

At Thursday’s news conference, Nicky Fox, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, was asked about this approach and whether NASA was rethinking its commitment to low-cost missions.

In her response, Fox noted that NASA has numerous science and exploration missions in the works — including the Blue Ghost lunar lander from Cedar Park, Texas-based company Firefly Aerospace. The robotic explorer is operating near the moon’s equator after a successful touchdown on March 2.

“We get together and we celebrate one another’s successes and we empathize with the challenges,” Fox said.

Intuitive Machines will carefully analyze data from Athena over the next 30 days in a process referred to as a “hot wash,” the company’s CEO Steve Altemus said Thursday.

“We prepare a set of recommendations for what went well, what went wrong, what needs to be fixed for the next mission,” Altemus said.

The company was planning to launch a third landing mission, called IM-3, about a year from now. But Altemus suggested that may change as the company pursues a contract for satellites that can relay data from the moon.

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