Intuitive Machines, a Houston-based company that should perform a historic mission to search for water at the South Lunar Pole, announced on Friday (7) that its landing module Athena turned only a day after reaching the lunar surface.
Athena was expected to operate for about 10 days before turning off, when the lunar night fell over the ship’s landing site in Mons Mouton, a plateau that is about 160 kilometers from the south pole. But photographs sent by the module before off confirmed that the vehicle is lying on the side.
“With the direction of the sun, the guidance of solar panels and extremely cold temperatures in the crater, Intuitive Machines does not expect Athena to recharge,” the company said in a statement. “The mission has been completed and the teams continue to evaluate the data collected throughout the mission.”
Intuitive Machines, however, pointed out that although Athena did not operate as planned, the module was able to operate briefly and transmit data after landing. This made the mission the “lunar landing and southern surface operations ever performed.”
Intuitive Machines also reported that Athena was “able to accelerate several milestones of the program and payload, including NASA Prime-1, before module batteries were running out.” It is unclear if this means that the Prime-1, which is a drill that should pierce the lunar surface for water, has managed to operate, collect data or use their sensors to analyze the soil.
The company did not specifically address other useful charges that were aboard the Athena module. But the Colorado-based Lunar Outpost, which provided a four-wheeled Rover that should leave the module about six hours after Thursday’s landing, said in a publication on platform X that it failed to unfold.
Some of the scientific and technological instruments aboard Athena managed to operate during the moon traffic and lunar orbit before yesterday’s landing, officials from NASA and Intuitive Machines said at a press conference on Thursday (6).
Tim Crain, Director of Technology at Intuitive Machines, stressed that Athena has captured close-up images from the South Pole of the Moon, calling them exciting development that will help scientists better understand this area full of moon craters.
Pousing Challenges on the Moon
Athena’s premature shutdown resembles the last lunar mission of Intuitive Machines, which placed a module called Odysseus in the same rugged region of the South Pole in February 2024.
Odysseus also landed aside, but managed to operate for about six days, although their antennas were pointed out in an unfavorable direction, making it difficult to collect large amounts of data.
The company also revealed on Friday (7) that managed to determine that Athena landed about 250 meters from the intended landing site. At a press conference on Thursday (6) about Athena’s status, Intuitive Machines officials had only said that the exact landing site of the vehicle was unknown, but had probably not landed inside a 50 meter wide zone that the company had set as a target.
Intuitive Machines has developed the Lunar Athena module as part of NASA’s Commercial Payload Services program, in which the agency distributes relatively cheap fixed price contracts to private companies in an effort to stimulate innovation and reduce the cost of sending robotic exploration vehicles to the moon.
At the press conference on Thursday (6), Nicky Fox, an associate administrator of NASA’s scientific mission board, was asked about this approach and if NASA was rethinking its commitment to low cost missions.
In his response, Fox noted that NASA has numerous scientific and exploration missions in progress – including the Firefly Aerospace Blue Ghost lunar module, a Cedar Park, Texas company. The robotic explorer is operating near the lunar equator after a successful landing on March 2.
“We gather and celebrate each other’s successes and sympathize with the challenges,” said Fox.
Intuitive Machines will carefully analyze Athena data in the next 30 days in a process called “Hot Wash,” said the company’s CEO Steve Altemus on Thursday.
“We prepared a set of recommendations on what worked, what went wrong, which needs to be fixed to the next mission,” said Altemus.
The company planned to launch a third mission of landing, called IM-3, in approximately a year. But Altemus suggested that this can change while the company seeks a satellite contract that can relay moon data.
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This content was originally published in an Athena module shuts down a day after landing on the moon surface on CNN Brazil.
Source: CNN Brasil
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