The second lunar lander made by Intuitive Machines has touched down on the Moon, but like the private aerospace company’s first spacecraft, it may not be upright. The Athena vehicle for Intuitive Machines IM-2 mission landed yesterday just 100 miles from the lunar south pole, but there’s uncertainty around its orientation which may impact the mission’s duration.
Steve Altemus, CEO of Intuitive Machines, stated during the post-landing news conference, “We don’t believe we’re in the correct attitude on the surface of the Moon yet again.” We are going to get a picture from the lunar reconnaissance orbital camera from above and we’ll confirm that over the coming days.
According to Altemus, the Athena lander is charging on the surface and is communicating with the mission ground network team on Earth. However, performance is sub-optimally, which may cut Athena’s ten-day lifespan short. He said, “We have done some power conservation steps as prudent measures to see how long and what objectives we can accomplish in the mission going forward. It will be off-nominal, because we’re not getting everything that we had asked for in terms of power generation, communications.”
Once the orientation of the lander is confirmed, the IM-2 team can then establish how many of Athena’s payloads and scientific instruments are fully operational — including a drill designed to search for ice and a hopping drone vehicle named Grace that aims to explore a permanently shadowed crater for the first time.