Intuitive machine suffered a second kill on the moon landing

(Bloomberg) – Intuitive Machines believes its second lander may be in the wrong direction on the moon, repeating similar issues the company encountered when it first made last year.

After launching the latest lander, Athena, into space on February 26, Intuitive Machines attempted to land on the moon around 12:31 p.m. However, the company said it could not confirm the status of the vehicle, and later revealed that it might be incorrect on the moon.

It is not clear that non-weapon landing near the Moon’s South Pole means various performances and experiments of NASA-funded technology, which the spacecraft is carried to the moon’s surface.

“We don’t believe we’re right about the moon’s surface again,” Steve Altemus, CEO of Intuitive Machines, said in a news conference.

Intuitive Machine’s stock fell 33% to $7.58 in New York Post deals. This comes after stocks fell 20% in regular trading on Thursday.

The intuitive machine says Athena is exerting power and communicating with the Earth, but the company does not know where the vehicle is on the moon’s surface. The Howton-based intuitive machine said it hopes to use a camera to take pictures of Athena on the NASA spacecraft around the moon.

The landing attempt took place four days after another Texas-based company, Firefly Aerospace, successfully landed its first commercial space shuttle on the moon at a close distance. The moon spacecraft from intuitive machines and fireflies are both partially funded by NASA, part of the ongoing effort of the U.S. agency to begin the development of commercial spacecraft that can transport tools and experiments to the moon’s surface.

The intuitive machine seems to have failed to achieve its first landing goal. During the February 2024 touchdown, the company’s Odysseus Lander fell too fast at a strange angle, causing one of the landing legs to rupture and the spacecraft to fall.

It still marks the first full commercial lunar landing for mankind, and Odysseus’s tools are able to collect some data.

The intuitive machine is not sure what went wrong this time, but executives told reporters that the company may again have problems with the specialized lasers needed for navigation – a laser that made the company landed in the first time.

Company engineers blamed the first awkward touchdown for the missing wires needed to operate these lasers. As a result, Odysseus was basically blind when landing.

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Prior to Athena’s release, employees said the necessary wires had been installed and thoroughly tested. But at a land press conference, executives of Intuitive Machines said they got “noisy” data from the laser when Athena landed. Altemus proposes the theory that vibration or temperature problems can lead to connection problems of the laser.

“There are some events in space that cause this connection to make us a little squirrel,” Altims said.

Athena carries two marching vehicles, one of which is designed to jump over the moon’s surface. Both wanderers are trying to communicate with Athena through the first lunar cellular network developed by Finnish telecom company Nokia.

Firefly’s Lander Blue Ghost landed as planned on March 2, and the company announced the mission was the first “fully successful” commercial lunar landing.

(Update new details about the entire task.)

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