US startup’s moonshot apparently lands on its side

By Joey Roulette, Akash Sriram

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The second moon landing by Intuitive Machines appears to have suffered the same fate as its first try last year, with data indicating the Athena lander ended on its side on the lunar surface after problems with its laser rangefinders, the U.S. company said on Thursday.

The six-legged Athena lander, carrying 11 payloads and scientific instruments, touched down at a site some 100 miles (160 km) from the lunar south pole after launching atop a SpaceX rocket on February 26 from Florida.

“We don’t believe we’re in the correct attitude on the surface of the moon, yet again,” Steve Altemus, CEO of the Houston-based startup, told a news conference.

Intuitive Machines is one of many companies primed by NASA to return the United States to the moon, with greater private sector involvement seen as a lower cost but higher risk means of spaceflight. The company’s shares were down 36% at around $7 in extended trading after having closed the regular Nasdaq session down 20% at $11.26.

Altemus said the lander sent some data back to Earth that indicated it was not upright. Specifically, he said, data from an instrument called the Inertial Measurement Unit, or IMU, “says we’re oriented somewhat on our side.”

“The IMU measurement was the piece of data that gave us the most clarity … so we think that’s the case,” Altemus added.

Power generation issues due to the position of the lander would mean the mission would be “off-nominal,” Altemus said, adding that there were “challenges” with the laser rangefinders, which are used to measure precise distances.

Athena’s landing was targeted for a touchdown timed for 12:32 p.m. ET (1732 GMT). But by that time, its engine was still running, telemetry showed, as it appeared to hover over the moon’s surface. Minutes later, after directing the lander’s engine to shut down, the company confirmed that Athena “is on the surface of the moon,” though its exact orientation was not yet clear.

The company may hold off on its third lunar landing mission, scheduled for next year, in order to wait for deployment of a company communications satellite, Altemus said

Athena flew a winding path to the moon some 238,000 miles (383,000 km) from Earth.

Company executives tried to put a positive spin on the developments.

Chief Technology Officer Tim Crain described what he called a successful flight to the moon and smarter crater-recognition algorithms that worked “almost an order of magnitude better than we anticipated.”

“The future is bright for Intuitive Machines to land lots and lots of cargo on the moon,” Crain said.

The first moon landing attempt by Intuitive Machines almost exactly a year ago, using its Odysseus lander, marked the most successful touchdown attempt at the time by a private company.

But its hard touchdown – due to a faulty laser altimeter used to judge its distance from the ground – broke a lander leg and caused the craft to topple over, dooming many of its onboard experiments.

Five nations have made successful soft landings in the past – the then-Soviet Union, the United States, China, India and, last year, Japan. The United States and China are both aiming to put their astronauts on the moon this decade, each courting allies and giving their private sectors a key role in spacecraft development.

India’s first uncrewed moon landing, Chandrayaan-3 in 2023, touched down near the lunar south pole. The region is eyed by major space powers for its potential for resource extraction once astronauts return to the surface – subsurface water ice could in theory be converted into rocket fuel.

Austin-based Firefly Aerospace this month celebrated a clean touchdown of its Blue Ghost lander, marking the most successful soft landing by a private company to date.

Intuitive Machines, Firefly, Astrobotic Technology and a handful of other companies are building lunar spacecraft under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, an effort to seed development of low-budget spacecraft that can scour the moon’s surface before the U.S. sends astronauts there around 2027.

(Reporting by Joey Roulette, Akash Sriram and Peter Henderson; Editing by Will Dunham and Rosalba O’Brien)