A day after landing on the moon, the robotic Athena spacecraft built by Intuitive Machines of Houston is dead. In an update on its website on Friday, the company confirmed that Athena had tipped onto its side — the same fate that befell its first lunar lander, Odysseus, last year. With its solar panels unable to face the sun, the …
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Athena didn’t crash. But what did happen to it? Hours after the 15-foot-tall robotic spacecraft arrived at the moon’s 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’s scientific achievements. “We’re …
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March 6, 2025, 11:15 a.m. ET A team of engineers from NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston and Honeybee Robotics in Altadena, California inspecting the TRIDENT drill shortly after its arrival at the integration and test facility.Credit…Robert Markowitz/NASA Much of the moon’s frozen water is likely below the surface, out of view of orbiting spacecraft. A drill on Athena will …
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Intuitive Machines landed a robot on the moon last year. Can the Houston company do it again, but keep the spacecraft upright this time? When the spacecraft, named Odysseus, set down on the moon last February, it managed to communicate with Earth even though it had toppled on its side. It was the first commercially operated lander to reach the …
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