Athena moon lander ended up on its side, bringing mission to an early end

A melodramatic photograph from Intuitive Machines' Athena satellite lander shows it touched down Thursday successful a crater adjacent the lunar southbound rod and tipped implicit connected its side. Given a debased prima space and the predisposition of the lander's star cells, the spacecraft's artillery rapidly drained, bringing the ngo to an aboriginal end, institution officials said Friday

"Images downlinked from Athena connected the lunar aboveground confirmed that Athena was connected her side," the institution said connected its website.

A camera connected the Athena lander shows the spacecraft came down successful a crater adjacent the moon's southbound rod and tipped implicit connected its side. Earth is framed betwixt 2 of the spacecraft's landing legs successful the distant background. Intuitive Machines

"After landing, ngo controllers were capable to accelerate respective programme and payload milestones, including NASA's PRIME-1 (drill) suite, earlier the lander's batteries depleted," the connection continued. "With the absorption of the sun, the predisposition of the star panels, and utmost acold temperatures successful the crater, Intuitive Machines does not expect Athena to recharge. The ngo has concluded and teams are continuing to measure the information collected passim the mission."

Launched Feb. 26 atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, the Athena lander carried 10 subject instruments and exertion demonstrations funded by a NASA programme that pays commercialized spacecraft operators to present the agency's payloads to the moon. The extremity is to cod information needed earlier astronauts instrumentality to the satellite successful the 2027-28 timeframe.

In this case, NASA agreed to wage Intuitive Machines $62.5 cardinal to present a drill and a wide spectrometer, known arsenic Prime-1, to the moon. NASA's "tipping point" exertion improvement programme paid $15 cardinal for Nokia cellular communications instrumentality and different $41 cardinal to assistance concern an innovative rocket-powered "hopper" designed to leap into and retired of a permanently shadowed crater successful hunt of ice.

Athena performed flawlessly from motorboat to lunar orbit and astir of the mode to the lunar surface. But shortly earlier touchdown, the lander's autonomous guidance and navigation strategy began steering to 1 side, presumably to debar boulders oregon immoderate different hazard connected the surface, and ended up coming down successful a crater immoderate 820 feet from the intended target.

The spacecraft whitethorn person tipped implicit aft hitting the crushed astatine an space oregon owed to immoderate residual sideways motion. Intuitive didn't code the last seconds of the landing, but said that adjacent resting connected its side, Athena remained functional, acknowledging commands from the ground, downlinking information and attempting to recharge its batteries. But it was not enough.

"This confederate rod portion is lit by harsh prima angles and constricted nonstop connection with the Earth," Intuitive Machines said connected its web page. "This country has been avoided owed to its rugged terrain and Intuitive Machines believes the insights and achievements from IM-2 volition unfastened this portion for further abstraction exploration."

The landing mishap was the second specified disappointment for Intuitive Machines. The company's archetypal satellite lander, named Odysseus, touched down connected the satellite past year, but it deed the aboveground harder than expected and a landing limb failed. The conveyance ended up connected its broadside and incapable to implicit its mission.

Athena's accomplishment was preceded by the successful touchdown of a commercialized lander built by Austin, Texas-based Firefly Aerospace that besides carried NASA-sponsored payloads to the surface. That spacecraft, known arsenic Blue Ghost, landed Sunday successful a antithetic portion of the satellite with overmuch much forgiving terrain.

A 3rd privately-built lander, this 1 from Tokyo-based ispace, was launched atop the aforesaid Falcon 9 that boosted Blue Ghost into space. The Japanese Resilience lander is taking a longer, low-energy way to the satellite and is expected to onshore successful June.

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