Intuitive Machines lander arrives on the Moon, but on its side
Houston-based Intuitive Machines says the spacecraft scheduled to land on the Moon Thursday arrived but landed on its side.
Why it matters: The machine aims to help gather critical data for NASA's Artemis missions to the Moon.
The project is part of a NASA program that utilizes public-private partnerships to lay the foundation for a sustained human lunar presence.
Driving the news: Intuitive Machines, a space exploration, infrastructure, and services company, said that its IM-2 mission lunar lander, Athena, landed 250 meters from its intended landing site.
The company said this was the southernmost lunar landing ever achieved, which is significant because NASA plans on sending astronauts to the Moon's southern lunar pole.
Yes, but: Being on its side prevents the sunlight from reaching solar panels intended to recharge its battery.
Mission controllers were able to deploy some experiments and payloads on the lunar surface before the battery depleted entirely.
Catch up quick: The company landed its IM-1 vehicle on the Moon in 2024, but the machine tipped over upon touchdown, cutting the mission short.
The IM-2 was launched by the SpaceX Falcon 9 in late February and orbited the Moon 39 times before landing on Thursday.
What they're saying: "Our goal is to set American companies up to establish a lunar economy on the surface, and that means that even if it doesn't land perfectly, we always learn lessons that we can provide and use in the future," Nicola Nicky Fox, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA, said during a news conference after the landing.
What's next: The mission has concluded, but scientists will continue to assess data collected from the lander.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CNN
33 minutes ago
- CNN
America's skies may soon open up to supersonic travel. But there's still a big problem
The skies over the United States could be wide open for much faster air travel in the near future. Not just because passenger planes capable of breaking the sound barrier are in development — for the first time ever, they could be allowed to do it over American soil. Even during the days of Concorde, the supersonic plane that retired in 2003, commercial flying at speeds above Mach 1 over mainland US was strictly forbidden, largely due to concerns over noise pollution from sonic booms. Now moves are afoot to lift that restriction with a bill recently introduced in the Senate, and a similar measure in the House of Representatives. That means if the long-awaited 'Son of Concorde' ever gets here, it will have more potential supersonic routes than its predecessor. Currently, there are several supersonic passenger jets in development that aim to reach speeds beyond Mach 1 without crashing loudly through the sound barrier. NASA's experimental X-59, expected to begin flight testing in 2025, aims to reduce noise to a 'sonic thump.' And then there's Colorado-based Boom Supersonic, which is developing the Overture, the first actual supersonic passenger plane since Concorde flew into the sunset. Opening up US skies could be a step toward removing some of the hurdles it faces in becoming a reality. 'It's a super exciting year for us,' Blake Scholl, founder and CEO of Boom told CNN. Much of that excitement comes from the company's XB-1 demonstrator aircraft breaking the sound barrier in January and again in February. It did so without creating a detectable sonic boom by flying at what it calls 'boomless cruise' — also known as 'Mach cutoff' — where sound refracts away from the ground at speeds close to the sound barrier in certain atmospheric conditions. Boom aims to build the first prototype Overture engine by the end of the year and, if all goes according to the company's very ambitious timeline, American Airlines, Japan Airlines (JAL) and United Airlines could all take delivery of their very first Overtures by the end of the decade. Scholl's sales pitch is very appealing. Who doesn't want to be able to work a full day on the West Coast, jump on a supersonic flight east that evening, and either be home or in a hotel in New York or D.C. before midnight? The Overture would make those trips possible with a cruise speed of Mach 1.7 that could slash the duration of a transcontinental flight by up to half. Overture's 80 passengers could make those speedy flights in relative comfort. Renderings show luxurious seats comparable to the contemporary business class offering on any subsonic plane. Whether airlines are keen is another matter. The range of the Overture is one challenge. At about 4,888 miles, it's enough for a transcontinental flight over the US or a transatlantic hop to Europe but not enough to traverse the Pacific without a stop. And the much-touted commitments from American, JAL and United are all non-binding and, at least in the eyes of the industry, viewed as more fluff than substance. Critically, none of the airlines list the deals among their firm capital commitments in stock exchange filings. 'Boom is working in opposition to the most durable single trend in all of flying since the jet age began,' Jon Ostrower, editor-in-chief of trade publication The Air Current, said on The Air Show podcast in February. 'Airlines, fundamentally, since (the dawn of the jet age) have wanted more efficient aircraft.' By Boom's own estimates, the Overture would burn two to three times more fuel per premium seat — first or business class — than a subsonic plane, such as the Airbus A350 or Boeing 787, on an intercontinental flight. Another estimate from the nonprofit International Council on Clean Transportation puts the Overture's fuel burn at five- to- seven-times that of a subsonic long-haul jet. Airlines would recoup those added fuel costs through higher airfares. Researchers at Worms University of Applied Sciences in Germany described those fares as a 'supersonic premium' in a paper published in the Journal of Air Transport Management last year. They estimated that airfares on the Overture would need to be roughly 38% higher than the current business class fares on a New York-London flight to turn a profit. Put another way, supersonic flyers would pay roughly $4,830 one-way from New York to London in June based on current average one-way airfares of around $3,500 on Google Flights. The researchers at Worms were confident that when flying westward travelers would pay a premium for supersonic flights because they 'fly back in time,' as one of the report's authors Jan Belke told CNN. That time gain could translate into real monetary benefits. Eastbound, however, the financial case was weaker due to hours lost across time zones. While Boom's Scholl acknowledged that Overture seats will likely be priced out of budget for most passengers, he said there's still a solid business case. 'If you hit a mainstream price point — and business class is a mainstream price point — I think of it as the [Tesla] Model S of supersonic flight, it's not yet for everybody but it is a pretty big market segment,' he said. The question is how many will pay that supersonic premium? Digital communications have vastly improved from the days of the Concorde. Video calls have reduced the need for in-person meetings, and with flyers now able to answer emails or even join a virtual meeting in mid-air, in-air downtime is rapidly shrinking on subsonic flight. Richard Aboulafia, a managing director at AeroDynamic Advisory and a long-time skeptic of Boom's business case for the Overture, estimated that Boom needs $12-15 billion to bring the Overture to market, but has only raised around $800 million to date. Boom had about $700 million, according to its last public funding disclosure in 2023. Asked how much Boom needs to develop Overture, Scholl put the number at 'under $2 billion.' He cited numerous cost savings the company has found eliminating 'inefficiencies' in the existing aerospace supply chain by, for the most part, integrating production under its own roof. This integration, Scholl added, also speeds up the development and production process. That gives him confidence in achieving its aggressive timeline of flying the Overture by 2028 and handing the first planes over to airlines a year later. Ostrower called the timeline unrealistic. Of the many challenges ahead of Boom, one is regulatory approval. The Federal Aviation Administration's certification process has slowed dramatically since the Boeing 737 MAX grounding in 2019 and 2020. Boom's timeline allows for just a year of flight tests; Airbus took about 18 months to certify the A350 from first flight in June 2013 to the first delivery in December 2014. Scholl seems unfazed by this, expressing confidence in Boom's ability to meet its targets and produce planes that, in his words, 'delete the friction of travel' by going a whole lot faster than today's jets. 'There's no guarantee of success here — statistically failure is the most likely outcome — but it's definitely possible,' Scholl said. 'The technology is there, the market is there, the passengers and airlines are there, the regulations for overland, I believe, will be there in relative short order. We just have to execute.'
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Too scared to shop? Why retail is a prime target for criminals
Harrods, Co-op, Marks & Spencer (M&S) and now Adidas have all experienced damaging cyber attacks in recent weeks, which have sent shock waves through the retail industry. M&S alone has warned of a £300 million ($405 million) hit on profits. The attack, which began over the Easter weekend, also wiped more than £750 million ($1 billion) off its market capitalization. On 30th April, the Co-op also fell victim, reporting a few days later that hackers had accessed a 'significant' amount of customer data. Then on 2nd May, Harrods also experienced a cyber attack, although in this instance, they managed to prevent any malicious intrusion. 101 Co-op Group rank on the Fortune 500 Europe In the M&S incident, third-party service provider Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has reportedly launched an internal investigation to determine whether it was the gateway by which the hackers gained access. It all points to a vulnerability amongst retail businesses, despite the fact that the threat from cyber attacks has existed for many years. But why are retail businesses being targeted? 252 Marks & Spencer rank on the Fortune 500 Europe 'Retailers are prime targets for cybercriminals due to the vast amounts of personal, financial, and other sensitive data they manage. For malicious actors, access to this data is like gold dust: highly valuable and potentially extremely lucrative' Marc Rivero, Lead Security Researcher in the Global Research & Analysis Team at Kaspersky, told Fortune. On 27th May, Adidas became the latest victim of a cyber attack when it reported that, similar to M&S, hackers had accessed customer data through a third-party service provider. In the case of M&S, according to Vaibhav Chechani, a Mumbai-based analyst at brokerage Nirmal Bang, if the attack did originate from the Indian company, 'it will definitely impact their brand image'. TCS also works as a 'strategic partner' to Co-op. 'Retailers are prime targets for cybercriminals due to the vast amounts of personal, financial, and other sensitive data they manage…' Marc Rivero, Lead Security Researcher in the Global Research & Analysis Team, Kaspersky Rivero commented, 'As seen in the M&S attack, social engineering allows attackers to bypass sophisticated cybersecurity measures by exploiting human error. These 'human hacking' tactics manipulate users into clicking malicious links, disclosing sensitive information, or granting access to restricted systems'. 'Simply put, data opens doors. It enables fraud, fuels targeted phishing campaigns, and can even be leveraged to infiltrate other businesses within the supply chain. This makes retailers not just lucrative targets, but also strategically valuable within the broader digital ecosystem'. M&S CEO Stuart Machin confirmed this, blaming the attack on 'human error' rather than a weakness in its cybersecurity measures and added that, 'it is a moment in time, and we are now focused on recovery, with the aim of exiting this period a much stronger business. There is no change to our strategy and our longer-term plans to reshape M&S for growth, and if anything, the incident allows us to accelerate the pace of change as we draw a line and move on'. Despite this optimistic outlook, Retail Technology Magazine publisher and retail expert, Miya Knights, believes that other retailers could also be targeted, believing that those most vulnerable would be 'those that have a sizable business with large tier one scale turnover across many channels'. Speaking to Fortune, she added, 'Cybersecurity has been a basic requirement for as long as retailers have deployed IT and transacted online. But, just as e-commerce has become a major growth driver, safeguarding the digital systems they now rely on must become as core to their business as it is for financial services companies.' This should be the wake-up call that the retail industry needed in order to treat these threats in the same way as financial services institutions. Actions to combat the threat appear to be happening within the industry, with one prominent retail CTO saying that he is collaborating with several other retailers, including some direct competitors, to mitigate the risk of future cyber attacks. M&S CEO Stuart Machin [blamed] the attack on 'human error' rather than a weakness in its cybersecurity measures… According to Rivero, the retail sector is under mounting pressure from cyber groups persistently probing for vulnerabilities to access large volumes of data. He said that, 'Retailers must regularly reassess their cybersecurity strategies and continue to invest in robust defense mechanisms'. 'Retailers must adopt a multi-layered approach to cybersecurity, acknowledging that no single measure can provide complete protection. This approach should begin with staff education. Training employees to recognize phishing attempts and suspicious behavior is critical, with human error remaining one of the most common entry points for attackers', he continued. However, it's not all the responsibility of retailers, Rivero believes that to feel more secure, consumers should take a proactive approach to their digital safety. Regularly update passwords, enable multi-factor authentication where possible, remain cautious of suspicious messages or emails, and monitor financial activity closely, 'reporting any unusual behavior immediately', adding that, 'a cautious, informed approach remains the best line of defense'. His advice to retailers using third-party service providers: 'Adopt a proactive approach: regularly conducting thorough risk assessments of all vendors, enforcing strict access controls, and requiring regular security audits. Ongoing employee training is also essential – not just for non-IT staff, but also for IT teams, who are frequently targeted by social engineering tactics'. And as he puts it, 'In a landscape where cybercriminals exploit every weak link, resilience must extend beyond the organization itself to encompass the entire supply chain and all vendors'. This story was originally featured on
Washington Post
an hour ago
- Washington Post
SpaceX's town in Texas warns residents may lose property rights
Homer Pompa has lived in a rural area on Texas's southernmost tip, near the U.S.-Mexico border, for more than a half-century. Since 2014, the 75-year-old Brownsville native has watched his tiny coastal community transform into ground zero for Elon Musk's SpaceX and its billion-dollar effort to colonize Mars. Then, last month, more than 200 people — many of them SpaceX employees — voted to turn Pompa's parcel of land and parts of unincorporated Boca Chica Village into a city named Starbase. Weeks later, the disabled Vietnam War veteran received a letter from the newly created city informing him that he is at risk of losing the 'right to continue using your property for its current use' as the city reviews its zoning.
