{"id":1238001,"date":"2025-03-08T02:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-03-08T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1238001"},"modified":"2025-03-08T02:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-03-08T07:00:00","slug":"athena-spacecraft-declared-dead-after-toppling-over-on-moon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1238001","title":{"rendered":"Athena Spacecraft Declared Dead After Toppling Over On Moon"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>The Athena lunar lander from Intuitive Machines has prematurely ended its mission after tipping onto its side shortly after touching down near the moon&#8217;s south pole, failing to fully accomplish its planned water-searching objectives. From a report: Athena was expected to operate for about 10 days before powering down as lunar night fell over the spacecraft&#8217;s landing site at Mons Mouton, a plateau that lies about 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the south pole. But photographs delivered by the lander before it powered down confirmed the vehicle is lying on its side. &#8220;With the direction of the sun, the orientation of the solar panels, and extreme cold temperatures in the crater, Intuitive Machines does not expect Athena to recharge,&#8221; the company said in a statement. &#8220;The mission has concluded and teams are continuing to assess the data collected throughout the mission.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Intuitive Machines, however, highlighted that, although Athena did not operate as intended, the lander was able to briefly operate and transmit data after touchdown. That made the mission the &#8220;southernmost lunar landing and surface operations ever achieved.&#8221; Intuitive Machines also said that Athena was &#8220;able to accelerate several program and payload milestones, including NASA&#8217;s PRIME-1 suite, before the lander&#8217;s batteries depleted.&#8221; PRIME-1, which includes a drill that was expected to dig into the lunar surface to hunt for water, was able to move, according to a statement from NASA that states the device &#8220;demonstrated the hardware&#8217;s full range of motion in the harsh environment of space.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div class=\"share_submission\" style=\"position:relative;\">\n<a class=\"slashpop\" href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/home?status=Athena+Spacecraft+Declared+Dead+After+Toppling+Over+On+Moon%3A+https%3A%2F%2Fscience.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F25%2F03%2F08%2F0145217%2F%3Futm_source%3Dtwitter%26utm_medium%3Dtwitter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/twitter_icon_large-123.png\"><\/a><br \/>\n<a class=\"slashpop\" href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fscience.slashdot.org%2Fstory%2F25%2F03%2F08%2F0145217%2Fathena-spacecraft-declared-dead-after-toppling-over-on-moon%3Futm_source%3Dslashdot%26utm_medium%3Dfacebook\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/facebook_icon_large-125.png\"><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/science.slashdot.org\/story\/25\/03\/08\/0145217\/athena-spacecraft-declared-dead-after-toppling-over-on-moon?utm_source=rss1.0moreanon&amp;utm_medium=feed\">Read more of this story<\/a> at Slashdot.<\/p>\n<p><iframe src=\"https:\/\/slashdot.org\/slashdot-it.pl?op=discuss&amp;id=23630531&amp;smallembed=1\" style=\"height: 300px; width: 100%; border: none;\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Athena lunar lander from Intuitive Machines has prematurely ended its mission after tipping onto its side shortly after touching down near the moon&#8217;s south pole, failing to fully accomplish its planned water-searching objectives. From a report: Athena was expected &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1238001\">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":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[101,44,110],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1238001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-slashdot","category-technology","category-unfiltered-rss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1238001","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=1238001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1238001\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1238001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1238001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1238001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}