Dead Athena Moon Lander Seen Inside Its Crater Grave From Lunar Orbit (space.com) 24
From a Space.com article: Athena, the second lunar lander from Houston company Intuitive Machines, tipped over during its touchdown on March 6, ending up on its side within a small crater near the moon's south pole. This orientation prevented the lander's solar panels from capturing enough sunlight, and Intuitive Machines declared Athena dead on March 7. (The company's first moon lander, named Odysseus, also tipped over during its historic February 2024 touchdown but was able to operate for longer on the lunar surface.)
Athena beamed home a few shots of its surroundings before giving up the ghost. And we now have views of the lander and its crater grave from on high, courtesy of NASA's sharp-eyed Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). On March 7, LRO captured a gorgeous oblique photo of Athena and its landing site -- the Mons Mouton region, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the lunar south pole. Then, three days later, the probe snapped another pic, which provided a closer look at Athena on the shadowed floor of a 65-foot-wide (20 meters) crater.
Athena beamed home a few shots of its surroundings before giving up the ghost. And we now have views of the lander and its crater grave from on high, courtesy of NASA's sharp-eyed Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). On March 7, LRO captured a gorgeous oblique photo of Athena and its landing site -- the Mons Mouton region, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the lunar south pole. Then, three days later, the probe snapped another pic, which provided a closer look at Athena on the shadowed floor of a 65-foot-wide (20 meters) crater.
Very unfortunate (Score:1)
I hope they have the resources to try again, hopefully with an approach that offer much less chance of tipping.
Probably multiple reasons for the failure. (Score:2)
There are probably multiple reasons for the failure.
1. Touchdown while there still was a horizontal movement.
2. Insufficient surveying for a good landing spot.
3. Too high center of gravity on the probe relative to the spread of the support legs.
In the end it comes down to trying to make it cheap.
Re: Probably multiple reasons for the failure. (Score:2)
Plus the repeated problems with the altimeter. After the first time, there was really no excuse for the second failure.
Still, it's nice to have commercial efforts.
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You sound like you know how to do it.
Perhaps you should take that as a business opportunity?
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To me it looks like it landed on the side of a crater.
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b. The uneven surface would confuse the laser altimeter.
c. The computer would not know, to not land in a crater.
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a. Please explain given that mars' atmosphere is nearly a vacuum anyway and for lower gravity you simply user a lower pressure.
b. You think mars is a flat plain?
c. You think mars has no craters?
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RIP (Score:1)
o7
Money laundering (Score:1)
Sending a vertical tower to another planet with a soft dusty surface and expect it to stand vertically, even though it had already tipped over before... I am not sure what to say. Probably, they need to try that again.
On the other hand, if it is an empty shell, and was never expected to survive... That could make a nice money laundering scheme..
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Basic investigation and cross check with supplier sales would reveal the fraud. Plus Intuitive Machines has too many employees to keep that big a scam. They'd need to have made sure everyone they hired was going to not figure out the fraud or whistleblow. Even a basic investigation would cause the whole thing to unravel.
So they are always 90 degrees off. Big deal. (Score:2)
Next time just ask them to TRY to land one on its side. That should fix the problem.
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I guess all the photos of the lunar landers taken from orbit since were faked too along with the laser reflectors they placed on the surface that are still being used for ranging?
Lets all agree you're a tin foil hat idiot and move on shall we?
Re: Faked (Score:1)
We don't have a supersonic passenger jet in 2025. Therefore the Concorde never existed.
Genius I say, good sir!
I can't see anything. (Score:2)
Even with the arrow pointing at it in the first picture I see nothing there.
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Even with the arrow pointing at it in the first picture I see nothing there.
Yeah, I thought something similar at first. Our takeaway from the photo is that the amorphous blob is the lander inside a crater. That much we can tell. But we can't see enough to actually tell that it's on its side. That's simply a guess based on that lander's inability to communicate any more.
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It's also based on this image [space.com] taken by the lander as it lay on its side. Scott Manly made a great video [youtube.com] on the topic.
Simple (Score:2)
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Yeah, Elon the Space Nazi to the rescue!
More like failed intuition (Score:1)
Now, if these people would actually do solid engineering...
Apparently that is not how ro do it anymore.