San Francisco Frontiers - Deja vu on the Moon: Private US spaceship again lands awkwardly

Houston-based Intuitive Machines made history in February 2024 as the first private firm to place a spaceship on Earth's nearest neighbor, though the moment was partly marred by the fact it ended up sideways.

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

The team targeted a 12:32 pm ET (1732 GMT) touchdown, but as time passed, mission control grew visibly tense.

Twenty minutes past the scheduled landing time, company spokesman Josh Marshall announced on a webcast: "Athena is on the surface of the Moon." But, he added, teams were still analyzing incoming data to determine the lander's status and were attempting to retrieve an image.

Later, CEO Steve Altemus told a press conference: "We don't believe we're in the correct attitude" -- an aeronautical term for orientation. He added that this imperfect positioning could limit the mission due to suboptimal power generation and communications.

Intuitive Machines' share price tumbled 20 percent in afternoon trading.

Athena, like its predecessor Odysseus, has a tall, slender build. At 15.6 feet (4.8 meters) -- giraffe height -- its high center of gravity has raised stability concerns.

Expectations were high after Texas rival Firefly Aerospace successfully landed its Blue Ghost lander on the Moon on Sunday on its first attempt.

- Cutting-edge technologies -

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

The mission aims to deploy cutting-edge payloads including a drill to search for ice, a 4G cellular network test, three rovers and a unique hopping drone named Grace, after the late computer scientist Grace Hopper.

But it's not clear what can be deployed at this stage.

One of Grace's boldest objectives is a hop into a permanently shadowed crater, a place where sunlight has never shone -- a first for humanity.

MAPP, the largest of Athena's rovers and roughly the size of a beagle, was to assist in testing a Nokia Bell Labs 4G cellular network linking it with the lander and Grace -- technology designed to one day integrate into astronaut spacesuits.

Also aboard Athena is PRIME-1, a NASA instrument carrying a drill to search for ice and other chemicals beneath the lunar surface, paired with a spectrometer to analyze its findings.

- Sticking the landing -

Lunar landings are notoriously difficult. The Moon's lack of atmosphere rules out parachutes and forces spacecraft to rely on precise thrusts and navigation over hazardous terrain.

Until Intuitive Machines' first mission, only national space agencies had achieved the feat, with NASA's last landing dating back to Apollo 17 in 1972.

The company's first lander, Odysseus, came in too fast, caught a foot on the surface and toppled over, cutting the mission short when its solar panels could not generate enough power.

This time, the company said it had made critical upgrades, including better cabling for the laser altimeter, which provides altitude and velocity readings to ensure a safe touchdown.

Athena launched last Wednesday aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, which also carried NASA's Lunar Trailblazer probe, which has also faced problems.

Ground controllers are struggling to re-establish contact with the small satellite, designed to map the Moon's water distribution.

These missions come at a delicate time for NASA, amid speculation that the agency may scale back or even cancel the crewed Moon missions in favor of prioritizing Mars -- a goal championed by President Donald Trump and his billionaire advisor and SpaceX owner Elon Musk.

T.Martin--SFF