Intuitive Machines Suffers Second Off-Kilter Moon Landing

(Bloomberg) — Intuitive Machines Inc. believes its second lander may be in the wrong orientation on the moon, repeating a similar issue the company had last year when its first craft touched down lopsided.

After launching this most recent lander, called Athena, into space on Feb. 26, Intuitive Machines attempted to touch down on the moon around 12:31 p.m. New York time on Thursday. However, the company said it couldn’t confirm the vehicle’s status, and revealed later that it was likely not in the right position on the moon.

It was unclear what the off-kilter landing near the moon’s south pole means for a diverse manifest of NASA-funded technologies and experiments the spacecraft carried to the lunar surface.

“We don’t believe we’re in the correct attitude on the surface of the moon yet again,” Intuitive Machines Chief Executive Officer Steve Altemus told a news conference.

Shares in Intuitive Machines plunged as much as 33% to $7.58 in postmarket trading in New York. That came after the stock had closed down 20% in regular trading Thursday.

Intuitive Machines said Athena is generating power and communicating with Earth, but the company doesn’t know exactly where the vehicle is on the moon’s surface. Houson-based Intuitive Machines said it hopes to get a picture of Athena using a camera on a NASA spacecraft in orbit around the moon.

The landing attempt came just four days after another Texas-based company, Firefly Aerospace, successfully landed its first commercial spacecraft on the moon’s nearside. Both lunar spacecraft from Intuitive Machines and Firefly are partially funded by NASA as part of the US agency’s ongoing efforts to jumpstart the development of commercial spacecraft that can deliver tools and experiments to the moon’s surface.

Intuitive Machines appears to have fallen short of its goal of improving upon its first landing. During the touchdown in February 2024, the company’s Odysseus lander descended too fast and at an odd angle, causing one of the landing legs to break and the spacecraft to fall lopsided.

It still marked humankind’s first intact commercial lunar landing and Odysseus’ instruments were able to collect some data. 

Intuitive Machines isn’t sure what went wrong this time, but executives told reporters it’s possible the company had issues again with specialized lasers needed for navigation — the same lasers that complicated the firm’s first landing. 

Company engineers blamed the first awkward touchdown on a missing wire that was needed to operate these lasers. As a result, Odysseus was essentially flying blind as it came in for landing.

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Ahead of Athena’s launch, employees said the necessary wire had been installed and tested thoroughly. But during the post-landing press conference, Intuitive Machines executives said that they got “noisy” data from the lasers as Athena came in for landing. Altemus floated the theory that either vibrations or a temperature issue might have caused connection issues with the laser.

“There was some event in space that caused that connection to get a little squirrelly on us,” Altemus said.

Athena was carrying two roving vehicles, one of which is designed to hop across the moon’s surface. Both rovers were to attempt to communicate with Athena via the first lunar cellular network developed by Finnish telecommunications company Nokia.

Firefly’s lander Blue Ghost landed upright on March 2 as planned and the company has proclaimed the mission as the first “fully successful” commercial moon landing. 

(Updates with new details on mission throughout.)

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