A private US lander landed on the Moon on Thursday, but ground control teams are still working to check its status, including whether it is upright, a company spokesman said on Thursday.
“Athena is on the surface of the Moon,” said Josh Marshall of Houston-based Intuitive Machines during a webcast, news agency AFP reported, about 20 minutes after the robot landed near the lunar south pole. “We are working to figure out the orientation of the vehicle,” he added.
The lander’s destination is Mons Mouton, a flat-topped mountain about 100 miles from the moon’s south pole. That is closer to the moon’s south pole than any previous spacecraft has landed.
After becoming the first private company to land on the Moon last year, Intuitive Machines aimed for its second lunar landing on Thursday, carrying payloads to support future human missions.
The spacecraft, named Athena, is almost the same as Odysseus, the lander Intuitive Machines sent to the Moon last year. Odysseus was the first commercially operated vehicle to land on the Moon, but it tipped over shortly after landing.
The 15.6-foot (4.8-meter), hexagonal Athena lander is about the height of a giraffe.
Intuitive Machines’ February 2024 landing was partly affected when the lander tipped over, an issue the company hopes to avoid this time.
