{"id":23426,"date":"2025-03-06T22:50:30","date_gmt":"2025-03-06T23:50:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=23426"},"modified":"2025-03-07T00:29:17","modified_gmt":"2025-03-07T00:29:17","slug":"intuitive-machines-athena-lander-is-on-the-moon-but-its-fate-is-unclear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=23426","title":{"rendered":"Intuitive Machines\u2019 Athena Lander Is on the Moon, but Its Fate Is Unclear"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Athena didn\u2019t crash. But what did happen to it?<\/p>\n

Hours after the 15-foot-tall robotic spacecraft arrived at the moon\u2019s surface, closer to the lunar south pole than any spacecraft has been, it remained unclear whether its touchdown was smooth enough to perform its intended work, or if it toppled over in the process, potentially limiting the mission\u2019s scientific achievements.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re trying to evaluate exactly what happened in that last bit,\u201d Tim Crain, the chief technology officer of Intuitive Machines, said at a news conference.<\/p>\n

The spacecraft is almost identical to Odysseus, the lander that the company sent to the moon last year. Odysseus was the first commercially operated vehicle to successfully land on the moon. But that success came with an asterisk when the vehicle toppled shortly after reaching the ground.<\/p>\n

It appears that might have happened again.<\/p>\n

At a post-landing news conference, Steve Altemus, the chief executive of Intuitive Machines, said the spacecraft had sent back conflicting data about whether it was standing upright or tipped over. But a sensor known as an inertial measurement unit offered a perhaps convincing clue that Athena was on its side.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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As it headed to the lunar surface, laser instruments that measured the lander\u2019s altitude were providing noisy data, which may have contributed to the botched landing.<\/p>\n

Until that final descent, Athena had performed much more smoothly than the Odysseus lander a year ago, said Dr. Crain of Intuitive Machines. \u201cWe were expecting a fully successful landing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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Athena didn\u2019t crash. But what did happen to it?Hours after the 15-foot-tall robotic spacecraft arrived at the moon\u2019s surface, closer to the lunar south pole than any spacecraft has been, it remained unclear whether its touchdown was smooth enough to perform its intended work, or if it toppled over in the process, potentially limiting the mission\u2019s scientific achievements.\u201cWe\u2019re trying to evaluate exactly what happened in that last bit,\u201d Tim Crain, the chief technology officer of Intuitive Machines, said at a news conference.The spacecraft is almost identical to Odysseus, the lander that the company sent to the moon last year. Odysseus was the first commercially operated vehicle to successfully land on the moon. But that success came with an asterisk when the vehicle toppled shortly after reaching the ground.It appears that might have happened again.At a post-landing news conference, Steve Altemus, the chief executive of Intuitive Machines, said the spacecraft had sent back conflicting data about whether it was standing upright or tipped over. But a sensor known as an inertial measurement unit offered a perhaps convincing clue that Athena was on its side.As it headed to the lunar surface, laser instruments that measured the lander\u2019s altitude were providing noisy data, which may have contributed to the botched landing.Until that final descent, Athena had performed much more smoothly than the Odysseus lander a year ago, said Dr. Crain of Intuitive Machines. \u201cWe were expecting a fully successful landing,\u201d he said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23428,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23426"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23426\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23429,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23426\/revisions\/23429"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/23428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}