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Intuitive Machines has set down a 2nd spacecraft on the synodic month , just one year after accomplishing the feat for thefirst time ever . alas , much like that first attempt , it seems the company ’s spacecraft may have tipped on its side .
The lunar lander , called Athena , touched down on the moon ’s surface at around 12:30 p.m. ET on Thursday . It ’s the 2d secret space vehicle to set ashore on the moon this hebdomad , after Firefly Aerospace ’s Blue Ghost touch down on March 2 .
Intuitive Machines ’ chief technology ship’s officer said in a post - landing press league that Athena is somewhere inside the 50 - metre landing zone on Mons Mouton , a flat - topped mountain on the moon ’s south rod . But he said the company was still working on determining where , exactly , Athena tinct down .
chief executive officer Steve Altemus added during the conference that the company does n’t think Athena is at the “ correct attitude ” — spaceflight address for “ it probably topple over . ”
Altemus otherwise praise the delegacy , which he said went much more smoothly than last year ’s trip-up to the moonlight .
The rest of Athena ’s mission now hang in the balance . The space vehicle , which took off for the moon aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on February 26 , is hold a number of engineering that Intuitive Machines hoped to test out .
One is a inactive laser retroreflector regalia , which Intuitive Machines hopes to utilize to put across with other incoming or orbiting spacecraft . It ’s a crucial art object of technology for NASA ’s Leslie Townes Hope to build a permanent synodic month base — so much so that the space agencyawarded Intuitive Machines a $ 4.8 billion contractlate last year to build out the communication system . ( Only $ 150 million of that is guaranteed . )
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Athena is also carrying an ice excavation experimentation for NASA , which the bureau had hoped to use to specify whether there are enough natural resources on the moonlight to one day make fuel or breathable oxygen .
extra payload include a bird of passage promise MAPP that is supposed to screen out cellular equipment from Nokia , andsolid - state storagebilled as the first ever “ lunar data midpoint . ”
