Intuitive Machines Reveals Why Its Moon Lander Faceplanted Into a Crater
Earlier this year, an ill-fated lander skidded across the lunar surface and ended up lying sideways in a cold, dark crater. Intuitive Machines' Athena lander was declared dead on arrival at the Moon. Now, the company has released a report detailing the chain of mishaps that led to its demise.
Athena touched down on the Moon on Thursday, March 6, following a week-long journey through space. After a less-than-ideal touchdown, the lunar lander ended up on its side in a shallow crater in the Moon's Mons Mouton region, 820 feet (250 meters) from its targeted landing site. During an earnings call on Wednesday, Intuitive Machines listed three factors that affected Athena's ability to land on the Moon, SpaceNews reported.
The first issue had to do with the lander's laser altimeters, instruments designed to help it estimate its distance from the Moon during descent. 'In the final phase of descent, we saw signal noise and distortion that did not allow for accurate altitude readings,' Intuitive Machines CEO Steve Altemus said during the call.
The Houston-based company also blamed conditions at the Moon's south polar region. According to Altemus, the sunlight's low angles and the topography 'created long shadows and dim lighting conditions that challenged the precision capability of our landing system.'
The third factor that resulted in Athena's lunar tumble was the lander's inability to recognize craters on the Moon from lower altitudes. Intuitive Machines relied on photos captured by NASA's Lunar Reconnoissance Orbiter to guide the lander's optical navigation system during its descent. Those images, however, are captured at an altitude of 62 miles (100 kilometers) and therefore 'could not accurately account for how craters appear at lower altitudes with south pole lighting conditions as you approach the landing site,' Altemus said.
The company is treating Athena's failed mission as a set of lessons learned as it prepares to launch its third lander sometime next year. 'We've added dissimilar and redundant altimeters to the sensor suite, and they're going through more rigorous and extreme flight-like testing than we've done before,' Altemus said in Tuesday's call, according to Space.com. 'We've incorporated an additional lighting-independent sensor for surface velocity measurements. We've expanded onboard terrain crater database for enhanced navigation across the surface of the moon.'
Intuitive Machines launched its first lunar lander, Odysseus, in February 2024. It reached the lunar surface, but the landing wasn't exactly smooth. One of the lander's legs may have gotten caught during its descent, causing it to tip onto its side and end up lying sideways on a rock. The mission did operate for seven days on the lunar surface, making Intuitive Machines the first company to land a private lander on the Moon.
'Moving forward, we will succeed,' Altemus said. 'Land softly, land upright, land ready to operate.'
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