A private lunar lander has stopped working after landing sideways in a crater near the moon’s south pole, marking the end of its mission, officials confirmed Friday. The news came just a day after Texas-based Intuitive Machines’ landing attempt went awry.
Launched last week, the lander, named Athena, missed its target by over 800 feet (250 meters) and landed in a cold, shadowed crater. The company declared the mission a failure, stating that the lander was now inactive.
Before losing contact, Athena successfully sent back images confirming its location and activated several experiments. NASA and other customers had equipped the lander with tens of millions of dollars’ worth of experiments, including an ice drill, a drone, and two rovers, all intended to explore the uncharted lunar terrain in preparation for astronauts’ planned missions later this decade.
Due to the lander’s position and the extreme cold in the crater, it’s unlikely that its batteries will be recharged, as the solar panels are not properly aligned to catch enough sunlight.
“The mission has concluded, and teams are still reviewing the data collected throughout,” the company stated.
The larger, four-wheeled rover never managed to leave the lander after it fell. However, data sent back suggests it survived and could have driven off if the mission had gone according to plan, according to Lunar Outpost, the Colorado-based company that owns the rover.
This marked Intuitive Machines’ second landing attempt. The first attempt, a year ago, also ended with a sideways landing, though the company managed to keep the mission going longer than this time. Despite the issues, the company’s first lander successfully returned the U.S. to the moon for the first time in over 50 years.
Earlier in the week, another Texas-based company, Firefly Aerospace, achieved a successful landing as part of NASA’s commercial lunar delivery program, designed to stimulate business on the moon and help prepare for astronauts’ return. Firefly’s Blue Ghost lander touched down in the northern regions of the moon’s near side.
Firefly CEO Jason Kim shared on Friday that eight out of the 10 NASA experiments on the Blue Ghost lander have already met their mission objectives. The lander is expected to continue operating for another week until lunar daytime ends and solar power becomes unavailable.
Reaching and operating in the moon’s south polar region is particularly challenging due to extreme sun angles, limited communication with Earth, and rugged, uncharted terrain. Athena’s landing was the closest any spacecraft has come to the south pole, landing just 100 miles (160 kilometers) away.
NASA is planning its first crewed landing in the south polar region, targeting no earlier than 2027. The craters there are believed to contain large amounts of frozen water, which could potentially be used for drinking and converted into rocket fuel for future missions.
Intuitive Machines has contracts with NASA for two more lunar landing deliveries. However, before launching the next mission, the company needs to determine exactly what went wrong with this attempt. After Athena’s 15-foot (4.7-meter) lander touched down, controllers worked quickly to turn off some of its equipment to conserve power while trying to salvage whatever data they could.
In both of Intuitive Machines’ lunar landings, issues occurred at the last moment with the primary laser navigation system.
The company’s rocket-powered drone, Grace, was designed to hop across the moon’s surface before diving into a crater to search for frozen water. Additionally, two rovers from other companies—one American and one Japanese—were scheduled to explore the area.
Before the lander’s batteries ran out, NASA’s ice drill experiment was successfully activated, although it was unclear how much could be accomplished. However, several other objectives were completed, and some milestones were met, according to the company.
NASA paid $62 million to Intuitive Machines for the successful delivery of three experiments to the moon.