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, probably limiting the mission’s scientific achievements.
“We’re making an attempt to judge precisely what occurred in that final bit,” Tim Crain, the chief expertise officer of Intuitive Machines, stated at a information convention.
The spacecraft is nearly equivalent 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, stated the spacecraft had despatched again conflicting knowledge about whether or not it was standing upright or tipped over. However a sensor often known as an inertial measurement unit supplied a maybe convincing clue that Athena was on its aspect.
Because it headed to the lunar floor, laser devices that measured the lander’s altitude have been offering noisy knowledge, which can have contributed to the botched touchdown.
Till that remaining descent, Athena had carried out far more easily than the Odysseus lander a 12 months in the past, stated Dr. Crain of Intuitive Machines. “We have been anticipating a totally profitable touchdown,” he stated.
Mr. Altemus stated it was too quickly to find out how a lot of the deliberate mission might 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’ll then work carefully with NASA science and expertise teams to establish science targets which might be the very best precedence,” Mr. Altemus stated. “After which we’ll determine what the mission profile will seem like.”
The spacecraft shouldn’t be producing as a lot energy because it ought to, in all probability as a result of the photo voltaic panels will not be pointed within the appropriate course.
Photos from cameras on the spacecraft will assist Intuitive Machines determine the orientation of the spacecraft. Dr. Crain stated 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.
Photos from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which can cross over the touchdown web site, might pinpoint Athena’s exact location.
It has been a busy week in spaceflight and on the moon. Intuitive Machines was the second firm to succeed in the lunar floor this week, after Firefly Aerospace, one other Texas area 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 superb day,” Dr. Crain stated.
The principle buyer of each missions is NASA beneath its Business Lunar Payload Companies program, which hires personal firms 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 is probably not paid the complete quantity.
Shares of Intuitive Machines, which trades beneath the title LUNR after going public in 2023, tumbled after studies of the spacecraft’s issues. Its inventory fell 20 p.c on Thursday.
The principle payload on Athena is a drill for NASA that may extract lunar soil to be sniffed by a mass spectrometer for frozen water and different compounds. NASA officers stated 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,” stated Clayton Turner, the affiliate administrator for NASA’s area expertise mission director. “There are different choices we are able to use, too.”
Additionally aboard is a rover the dimensions of a small canine that may 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 might discover locations not simply reached by rovers.
A parade of lunar landers is predicted to proceed via the remainder of the 12 months.
A type of spacecraft is already in area. The Resilience lander from Ispace of Japan was launched on the identical SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that despatched Firefly’s Blue Ghost on its means. However it’s taking an extended, extra fuel-efficient path to the moon. It’ll enter orbit across the moon round Could 6 and check out 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 often known as Griffin that may carry a business rover designed by Lunar Outpost of Golden, Colo., amongst different cargo.
Essentially the most intriguing lander is the one deliberate by Blue Origin, the rocket firm began by Jeff Bezos. The lander, often known 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.
