Athena did not crash. But what happened to?
Hours after the 15-foot long robot-like spacecraft arrived at the surface of the moon, closer to the moon of the moon than any space tendency, it remained unclear whether the touchdown was flexible enough to perform the intended work, or whether it was reduced in the process, possibly limited the scientific performance of the mission.
“We try to evaluate exactly what happened in that last piece,” said Tim Crain, the Chief Technology Officer of Intuitive Machines, at a press conference.
The spacecraft is almost identical to Odysseus, the lander who sent the company to the moon last year. Odysseus was the first commercial servant vehicle that successfully lands on the moon. But that success came with an asterisk when the vehicle was overthrown shortly after reaching the ground.
It seems that this may have happened again.
During a post-landing news conference, Steve Altemus, the Chief Executive of Intuitive Machines, said that the spacecraft had returned conflicting data about whether it was upright or tipped. But a sensor that is known as a slowniness unit offered a perhaps convincing indication that Athena was on the side.
While it was on the way to the moon surface, laser instruments that yielded the height of the lander, which may have contributed to the failed landing.
Athena had achieved much smoother a year ago than the Odysseus Lander, Dr. Crain of intuitive machines. “We expected a completely successful landing,” he said.
Mr Altemus said it was too early to determine how much of the planned mission could still be salvaged. The Athena payloads include an exercise, three small robbers and a rocket hopping drone.
“If we get that full assessment, we will work closely with NASA science and technology groups to identify science objectives that have the highest priority,” said Mr. Altemus. “And then we will find out what the mission profile will look like.”
The spacecraft does not generate as much strength as it should be, probably because the solar panels are not focused in the right direction.
Images of cameras on the spacecraft help help to find out intuitive machines orientation of the spacecraft. Dr. Crain said that the spacecraft probably lay down outside the planned landing zone, but was convinced that it was still somewhere on Mons Mouton, a high plateau near the South Pole that Athena had to explore.
Images of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter of NASA, which will pass over the landing location, can determine the precise location of Athena.
It has been a busy week in space travel and on the moon. Intuitive machines was the second company that reached the moon surface this week, after Firefly Aerospace, another Texas Space Company, successfully reached the Mare Crision Region of the Moon on Sunday morning.
“Every time humanity puts a lander on the moon, it is a good day,” said Dr. Crain.
The most important customer of both missions is NASA in the context of its commercial Lunar Payload Services Program, which hires private companies to bring NASA-financed science and technological loads to the moon surface. The NASA contract for this mission is worth a maximum of $ 62.5 million, but intuitive machines cannot be paid for the full amount.
Shares of intuitive machines, which trades under the name Lunr after being public in 2023, tumbled after reports of the problems of the spacecraft. The stock fell by 20 percent on Thursday.
The most important load on Athena is an exercise for NASA that will extract moon bottom to be sniffed by a mass spectrometer for frozen water and other connections. NASA officials said it is possible that the exercise to work, even if the spacecraft was not vertical. “It doesn't have to be directly where I can drill straight down,” says Clayton Turner, the associated manager of the Mission Director of the Space Technology of NASA. “There are also other options that we can use.”
Also on board is a robber the size of a small dog that will test a Nokia mobile network on the moon, and two smaller robbers, one built by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the other by a Japanese company. Intuitive machines were also planning to test a rocket vehicle that was called a funnel that could explore places that were not easily reached by robbers.
It is expected that a parade of Moonlanders will continue for the rest of the year.
One of those spacecraft is already in space. The resilience lander from ISPACE from Japan was launched on the same SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket that sent the Blue Ghost from Firefly en route. But it takes a longer, more economical path to the moon. It goes around the moon around 6 May and try a landing a month later in Mare Frigoris, or the sea of cold, in the northern hemisphere of the moon.
In the fall, Astrobotic Technology of Pittsburgh is planning to try to get the moon that a large lander can fly known as Griffin who will wear a commercial robber designed by Venturi Astrolab from Hawthorne, California, next to other charge.
The most intriguing lander is planned by Blue Origin, The Rocket Company started by Jeff Bezos. De Lander, known as Blue Moon Mark 1, will be the biggest spacecraft that is ever laid on the moon, even larger than those who brought NASA astronauts to the moon during the Apollo Moon landings more than 50 years ago.
Danielle Kaye contributed reporting.
