Intuitive Machines’ lunar lander, Athena, has tragically ceased operations just a day after successfully landing at the Moon’s south pole, where it tipped over. Fortunately, the company announced that it managed to expedite several programme and payload milestones, deploying some experiments that had been attached to the lander prior to its untimely end.
This incident marks a second consecutive setback for Intuitive Machines, as their previous expedition with the Odysseus spacecraft also resulted in a tip-over after landing earlier this year in February.
The challenges faced by the Athena mission come just months after NASA selected Intuitive Machines for a significant contract worth up to $4.8 billion, aimed at developing a lunar communications system, though only $150 million of that amount is guaranteed.
According to the company, the orientation of Athena’s solar panels, combined with the low angle of sunlight and the extreme cold of the crater where it landed, prevented the spacecraft from recharging its batteries. In an update on the situation, Intuitive Machines stated, “The mission has concluded and teams are continuing to assess the data collected throughout the mission.”
Despite the mission’s abrupt conclusion, Intuitive Machines successfully deployed NASA’s Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment, which includes a drill engineered to penetrate up to three feet into the lunar surface. While the company did not specify additional experiments that were deployed, the lander was also carrying a rover equipped with Nokia cellular technology and a state-of-the-art “lunar data center,” among other payloads.
The early demise of the Athena mission underscores the complexities and challenges of lunar exploration and raises questions regarding future missions in partnership with NASA.
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