A privately owned lunar lander touched down on the moon Thursday, but as the minutes dragged on, flight controllers could not confirm its condition or whether it was even upright near the south pole. The last time Intuitive Machines landed a spacecraft on the moon, a year ago, it ended up sideways. The company's newest Athena lander dropped out of lunar orbit as planned, carrying an ice drill, a drone, and two rovers for NASA and others, the AP reports. The hourlong descent appeared to go well, but it took a while for Mission Control to confirm touchdown.
"We're on the surface," reported mission director and co-founder Tim Crain. A few minutes later, he repeated, "It looks like we're down. ... We are working to evaluate exactly what our orientation is on the surface." Launched last week, Athena was communicating with controllers more than 230,000 miles away and generating solar power, officials said. But nearly a half-hour after touchdown, Crain and his team still were unable to confirm if everything was all right with the 15-foot lander. NASA and Intuitive Machines abruptly ended their live webcast, promising more updates at a news conference later in the afternoon.
Last year, Intuitive Machines put the US back on the moon for the first time in more than 50 years. Last weekend, it was joined by another Texas company's lander. Firefly Aerospace on Sunday became the first to achieve complete success with its Blue Ghost lunar lander, on the northeastern edge of the near side of the moon. Intuitive Machines was aiming this time for a mountain plateau just 100 miles from the south pole, much closer than before. This week's back-to-back moon landings are part of NASA's commercial lunar delivery program meant to get the space agency's experiments to the lunar surface and jumpstart business.
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