Athena, a private moon lander developed by a Texas-based aerospace company called Intuitive Machines, landed in a lunar crater on the South Pole of the moon. The low angle of the sun and the ruggedness of the terrain combined to make the landing a little trickier than expected, causing the lander to tip over onto its side.

The private moon lander was launched on February 26 and landed carrying 10 scientific instruments to conduct research that will eventually aid in NASA’s long-awaited Artemis missions. Those missions will hopefully put astronauts back on the moon for the first time in decades.

What’s the Future of Athena Now?

While the lander’s battery quickly drained after its solar panels were unable to properly align with the sun after the whole thing tipped over, that doesn’t mean they didn’t already accomplish some of its goals. It conducted some experiments with NASA’s PRIME-1 drill, designed to drill holes into the moon’s surface to research the theoretical presence of water ice on the moon’s southern pole.

The lander’s guidance system veered the whole thing around 820 feet off course. Fortunately, Athena never lost communication with mission control, not that it matters much after it tipped over.

This is the second mishap for intuitive machines. Its first lander, Odysseus, failed to complete its mission, suffering a nearly identical fate to Athena. After reaching the moon’s surface to become the first privately owned spacecraft to do so, it tipped over during landing. And now, it’s happened again. An ignominious milestone but a milestone nonetheless, I guess.

All this comes shortly after another Texas-based aerospace company by the name of Firefly set its Blue Ghost lander on the moon’s surface on its mission to collect data for NASA’s eventual Artemis missions. A third privately built lander is set to launch in June, this one was developed by an aerospace company based out of Tokyo.