The Athena lander touched down in the region around the lunar south pole (pictured) on 6 March as planned, but its health is uncertain. Credit: Dave Tyler/Galaxy/Alamy
Update: Intuitive Machines announced on 7 March that the Athena spacecraft had landed on its side in a lunar crater and has run out of power. The mission is over, because it has no way to recharge its batteries. “Teams are continuing to assess the data collected throughout the mission,” the company said, including on the NASA ice drill that was the main reason for going to the lunar south pole.
The latest attempt to land on the Moon went at least partially awry on 6 March, when an ice-seeking spacecraft named Athena apparently landed off-kilter near the lunar south pole.
The precise status of Athena, which was built by Intuitive Machines in Houston, Texas, remained unclear in the hours after touchdown, but “we don’t believe we’re in the correct attitude”, Stephen Altemus, chief executive of Intuitive Machines, said at a post-landing press conference. Last year, the first spacecraft that the company tried to land on the Moon also set down askew, although it did accomplish some science.
This was the second lunar disappointment this week. NASA reported on 4 March that communication problems would keep its Lunar Trailblazer probe from entering its planned science orbit around the Moon. But not all the news is bad: a third lunar craft, built by Firefly Aerospace in Cedar Park, Texas, made a safe arrival on 2 March.
Moon mystery
Altemus said the company is working to acquire images from Athena’s several cameras and determine which parts are damaged and which are functional, and that more information will be available in the coming hours and days. At least for now, the spacecraft is getting power, and mission controllers have been able to communicate with the science payloads on board, he said.
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Depending on its position on the lunar surface, Athena might still be able to perform some of its activities. To have enough power to keep operating, it needs to have at least one solar panel oriented to catch sunlight. The Sun stays close to the lunar horizon at the craft’s landing site, and Athena is meant to operate until sunset at its landing site, roughly ten days after touchdown.
But the mission’s main purpose — hunting for ice — might not be accomplished. A drill aboard Athena that was meant to bore into the lunar soil to find ice cannot operate unless it is close to upright. “We’re looking forward to hearing what we have to work with,” said Nicola Fox, NASA’s associate administrator for science, at the press conference. The success of other components, such as three rovers and an ice-sniffing robotic ‘hopper’ meant to hop into shadowy craters, also depends on Athena’s position.
Spotty record
The outlook is also grim for Lunar Trailblazer’s mission to create high-resolution maps of water on the lunar surface. Trailblazer launched successfully alongside Athena on 26 February, but the NASA team “believes the spacecraft is spinning slowly in a low-power state”, the agency reported on 4 March. If mission controllers can restore communications in the coming days, they might be able to put Trailblazer into a less-than-optimal lunar orbit and eke out at least a little of its planned science.
