{"id":1237855,"date":"2025-03-07T11:26:37","date_gmt":"2025-03-07T16:26:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1237855"},"modified":"2025-03-07T11:26:37","modified_gmt":"2025-03-07T16:26:37","slug":"intuitive-machines-second-moon-mission-seems-to-have-gone-as-well-as-the-first","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1237855","title":{"rendered":"Intuitive Machines&#8217; second Moon mission seems to have gone as well as the first"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>The second lunar lander by Intuitive Machines <a data-i13n=\"cpos:1;pos:1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/science\/space\/intuitive-machines-is-expected-to-launch-its-second-lunar-lander-this-week-174703197.html\">has made its way to the Moon<\/a>, but not without incident. The Athena vehicle may not be upright, which is what happened to the company\u2019s <a data-i13n=\"cpos:2;pos:1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/intuitive-machines-odysseus-lander-tipped-over-at-touchdown-but-its-still-kicking-174541034.html\">Odysseus lander upon touchdown<\/a> back in February. CEO Steve Altemus said <a data-i13n=\"cpos:3;pos:1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/live\/q-mMJxIttBc?t=250s\">during the post-landing news conference<\/a> that he doesn\u2019t believe that Athena is \u201cin the correct attitude on the surface of the Moon yet again.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Altemus said that the company will know for sure in the coming days once the team gets \u201ca picture from the lunar reconnaissance orbital camera from above.\u201d Data from the lander\u2019s inertial measurement unit does seem to indicate a sideways orientation. We do know that Athena has touched down approximately 100 miles from the lunar south pole, which is where it&#8217;s supposed to be.<\/p>\n<p><span id=\"end-legacy-contents\"><\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"a2fc6611f2af493ca2024a061f36cc0e\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/WGf4aWipxC0?si=-YvoJ_ILitY5hoUg\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>Athena is part of the <a data-i13n=\"cpos:4;pos:1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.intuitivemachines.com\/im-2\">company\u2019s IM-2 mission<\/a>, which is a partnership with NASA to (finally) bring crewed missions back to the Moon. The lander also carries a bevy of payloads and scientific instruments designed to look for evidence of water on the lunar surface.<\/p>\n<p>The company\u2019s previous lander Odysseus was the first privately owned spacecraft to reach the Moon\u2019s surface, though it toppled over. Rival company Firefly Aerospace successfully landed its own Blue Ghost spacecraft onto the lunar surface earlier this week, <a data-i13n=\"cpos:5;pos:1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/science\/space\/fireflys-blue-ghost-lander-successfully-touched-down-on-the-moon-155728834.html\">and this one landed upright<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>As for Athena, it\u2019s currently charging on the surface and is communicating with the mission team here on Earth. However, performance seems to be sub-optimal. \u201cWe\u2019re not getting everything that we had asked for in terms of power generation and communications,\u201d Altemus said. This could impact the lifespan of the lander\u2019s ten-day mission, though the company has \u201cdone some power conservation steps as prudent measures to see how long and what objectives we can accomplish in the mission going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When the orientation is confirmed, the team can start figuring out how many of the payloads and instruments are in working order. These include a drill that searches for ice and a hopping drone vehicle that the company has scheduled to explore a permanently shadowed crater.<\/p>\n<p>This article originally appeared on Engadget at https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/science\/space\/intuitive-machines-second-moon-mission-seems-to-have-gone-as-well-as-the-first-162637189.html?src=rss<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The second lunar lander by Intuitive Machines has made its way to the Moon, but not without incident. The Athena vehicle may not be upright, which is what happened to the company\u2019s Odysseus lander upon touchdown back in February. CEO &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1237855\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[99,44,110],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1237855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-engadget","category-technology","category-unfiltered-rss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1237855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1237855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1237855\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1237855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1237855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1237855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}