Intuitive Machines Athena module lands on the moon, but it has problems

A busy week in space. On March 6, 2025 at 19:27 Kyiv time, the Athena lander from Intuitive Machines landed on the Moon. But it seems that the new IM-2 mission may suffer the same fate as the previous IM-1 mission. Recall that then the Odysseus lander rolled over on its side and worked on the Moon for only a week.

After a landing that was complicated by a plume of lunar dust, the Intuitive Machines team discovered that one of the spacecraft's antennas had lost its signal and put Athena into power-saving mode in case of a worst-case scenario of the spacecraft flipping over. After some time, it became clear that Athena was not generating enough power, meaning it most likely had a problem with the orientation of its solar panels.

NASA and Intuitive Machines held a joint press conference, confirming that the spacecraft was oriented incorrectly, but Athena nevertheless began conducting scientific experiments, but on a limited scale due to a lack of power. Intuitive Machines shares fell 20% due to the unsuccessful landing.

Recall that on March 3, 2025, the Blue Ghost module of the Firefly Aerospace company successfully landed on the Moon. Blue Ghost is expected to operate for about 14 Earth days before the beginning of the lunar night.