By AFP | 2025-03-07

Intuitive Machines' lunar lander appears to have touched down at a wonky angle on March 6, a repeat of its previous mission's less-than-perfect landing last year.

The Houston-based company made history in February 2024 as the first private firm to place a spaceship on Earth's nearest neighbor, though the moment was marred by Odysseus toppling over upon touchdown.

For its second attempt, the company sent the hexagonal Athena lander to the Mons Mouton plateau, closer to the lunar south pole than any mission before it.

The team targeted a touchdown at 12.32 pm US Eastern time, but as time passed with confirmation, mission control grew visibly tense.

Twenty minutes after the scheduled landing, company spokesman Josh Marshall announced on a webcast: "Athena is on the surface of the Moon." However, teams were still analyzing data to determine the lander's exact status, he said.

Later, CEO Steve Altemus acknowledged to reporters: "We don't believe we're in the correct attitude," an aeronautical term for orientation. He added that the lander's position could limit power generation and communication, affecting the mission's success.

The company suggested that, as in its previous mission, issues with Athena's laser altimeters, which provide altitude and velocity readings, may have played a role in the suboptimal landing.

Athena, like its predecessor Odysseus, has a tall, slender build. At 14.8 meters -- the height of a giraffe -- it had raised stability concerns.

However, Altemus emphasized that the lander's weight distribution kept the center of gravity low, and Intuitive Machines remains confident in its design.

Expectations were high after Texas rival Firefly Aerospace planted its Blue Ghost lander on the Moon on March 2 on its first attempt.

Cutting-edge technologies at stake

Both missions are part of NASA's $2.6 billion Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, which seeks to leverage private industry to reduce costs and support Artemis, NASA's effort to return astronauts to the Moon and eventually to reach Mars.

Athena carries an ice-drilling experiment, a 4G cellular network test, three rovers and a unique hopping drone named Grace, designed to descend into a permanently shadowed crater -- where sunlight has never reached -- a first for humanity.

However, whether any of these objectives can be met depends on Athena's final resting angle, which is yet to be determined.

"Any time humanity puts a lander on the Moon, it's a good day," said Tim Crain, the Intuitive Machines chief technology officer, striking a positive tone.

The team hopes to use imagery from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter to determine Athena's exact location and orientation, though this task could take a day or two, Crain added.

Despite the non-optimal orientation, NASA's Nicky Fox, associate administrator for the science mission directorate, said the agency remains "excited" and will prioritize gathering as many scientific and technology data as possible before the mission ends.

Athena launched February 26 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, which also carried NASA's Lunar Trailblazer probe, a spacecraft designed to map the Moon's water distribution.

However, ground controllers have been struggling to re-establish contact with Trailblazer.