Athena didn’t crash. However what did occur to it?
Hours after the 15-foot-tall robotic spacecraft arrived on the moon’s floor, nearer to the lunar south pole than any spacecraft has been, it remained unclear whether or not its landing was easy sufficient to carry out its supposed work, or if it toppled over within the course of, doubtlessly limiting the mission’s scientific achievements.
“We’re attempting to guage precisely what occurred in that final bit,” Tim Crain, the chief expertise officer of Intuitive Machines, mentioned at a information convention.
The spacecraft is sort of similar to Odysseus, the lander that the corporate despatched to the moon final 12 months. Odysseus was the primary commercially operated car to efficiently land on the moon. However that success got here with an asterisk when the car toppled shortly after reaching the bottom.
It seems that might need occurred once more.
At a post-landing information convention, Steve Altemus, the chief govt of Intuitive Machines, mentioned the spacecraft had despatched again conflicting knowledge about whether or not it was standing upright or tipped over. However a sensor referred to as an inertial measurement unit provided a maybe convincing clue that Athena was on its facet.
Because it headed to the lunar floor, laser devices that measured the lander’s altitude had been offering noisy knowledge, which can have contributed to the botched touchdown.
Till that ultimate descent, Athena had carried out rather more easily than the Odysseus lander a 12 months in the past, mentioned Dr. Crain of Intuitive Machines. “We had been anticipating a totally profitable touchdown,” he mentioned.
Mr. Altemus mentioned it was too quickly to find out how a lot of the deliberate mission may nonetheless be salvaged. Athena’s payloads embody a drill, three small rovers and a rocket-powered hopping drone.
“Once we get that full evaluation, we are going to then work carefully with NASA science and expertise teams to determine science targets which are the very best precedence,” Mr. Altemus mentioned. “After which we’ll determine what the mission profile will seem like.”
The spacecraft isn’t producing as a lot energy because it ought to, in all probability as a result of the photo voltaic panels are usually not pointed within the appropriate route.
Photographs from cameras on the spacecraft will assist Intuitive Machines determine the orientation of the spacecraft. Dr. Crain mentioned the spacecraft in all probability set down outdoors of the deliberate touchdown zone however was assured it was nonetheless someplace on Mons Mouton, a excessive plateau close to the south pole that Athena was to discover.
Photographs from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which is able to go over the touchdown website, may pinpoint Athena’s exact location.
It has been a busy week in spaceflight and on the moon. Intuitive Machines was the second firm to achieve the lunar floor this week, after Firefly Aerospace, one other Texas house firm, successfully reached the Mare Crisium region of the moon on Sunday morning.
“Any time humanity places a lander on the moon, it’s a very good day,” Dr. Crain mentioned.
The principle buyer of each missions is NASA below its Industrial Lunar Payload Companies program, which hires personal corporations to take NASA-financed science and expertise payloads to the lunar floor. The NASA contract for this mission is price as much as $62.5 million, however Intuitive Machines might not be paid the total quantity.
Shares of Intuitive Machines, which trades below the title LUNR after going public in 2023, tumbled after reviews of the spacecraft’s issues. Its inventory fell 20 % on Thursday.
The principle payload on Athena is a drill for NASA that can extract lunar soil to be sniffed by a mass spectrometer for frozen water and different compounds. NASA officers mentioned it may be attainable for the drill to work, even when the spacecraft was not vertical. “It doesn’t should be instantly the place I can drill straight down,” mentioned Clayton Turner, the affiliate administrator for NASA’s house expertise mission director. “There are different choices we will use, too.”
Additionally aboard is a rover the scale of a small canine that can check a Nokia cellphone community on the moon, and two smaller rovers, one constructed by the Massachusetts Institute of Expertise and the opposite by a Japanese firm. Intuitive Machines additionally deliberate to check a rocket-powered car referred to as a hopper that would discover locations not simply reached by rovers.
A parade of lunar landers is anticipated to proceed by the remainder of the 12 months.
A kind of spacecraft is already in house. The Resilience lander from Ispace of Japan was launched on the identical SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that despatched Firefly’s Blue Ghost on its method. However it’s taking an extended, extra fuel-efficient path to the moon. It’ll enter orbit across the moon round Could 6 and take a look at a touchdown a month later at Mare Frigoris, or the Sea of Chilly, within the moon’s northern hemisphere.
Within the fall, Astrobotic Expertise of Pittsburgh is planning to attempt to get to the moon flying a big lander referred to as Griffin that can carry a industrial rover designed by Lunar Outpost of Golden, Colo., amongst different cargo.
Probably the most intriguing lander is the one deliberate by Blue Origin, the rocket firm began by Jeff Bezos. The lander, referred to as Blue Moon Mark 1, would be the largest spacecraft ever to set down on the moon, even bigger than those that took NASA astronauts to the moon in the course of the Apollo moon landings more than 50 years ago.
Danielle Kaye contributed reporting.
