Athena, the robotic spacecraft built by Intuitive Machines, has ceased functioning just a day after landing on the moon due to a lack of sunlight reaching its solar panels. This marks the second failure of a lunar lander built by the company, the first being Odysseus last year. Despite some program and payload milestones being reached before the spacecraft’s demise, it is unlikely to revive.
NASA reported that some payloads were able to function and transmit data before the lander stopped working. Athena was part of the CLPS program to send science instruments and technology demonstrations to the moon with private companies like Intuitive Machines and Firefly Aerospace. The Blue Ghost lander by Firefly successfully touched down and is conducting experiments on a different part of the moon.
The quick failure of Athena raises questions about NASA’s strategy, as only one out of four CLPS missions has been a complete success so far. Despite the failures, the goal of building a profitable lunar economy through these missions is not entirely out of reach. Companies like Nokia and Lunar Outpost were involved in deploying technology like a 4G LTE cellphone network on the moon.
Interest in the moon has been reignited in recent years due to the discovery of frozen water in shadowed craters near the poles. NASA had hoped to gather more information on the water content of the lunar soil through instruments like the drill carried by Athena. With the fate of future lunar missions and investments in lunar exploration hanging in the balance, NASA will need to decide whether to allocate more resources towards further attempts at gathering valuable data from the moon.
Note: The image is for illustrative purposes only and is not the original image of the presented article.
