There's Some Serious Drama on the Moon

Houston-based space company Intuitive Machines' Athena lunar lander approached its final landing spot on the Moon early Thursday morning, where it was meant to touch down autonomously near Mons Mouton, a flat-topped mountain roughly 100 miles from the south pole, at around 12:30 pm EST. But several hours later, its exact fate remains unknown. While mission control confirmed it had reached the Moon and was generating at least some solar power, pretty much everything else was sounding about as ambiguous as possible. Then, Intuitive Machines CEO Steve Altemus made a somber announcement at a press conference. "We don't believe we're in the correct attitude on the surface of the Moon yet again," he said. "I don't have all the data yet to say exactly what the attitude of the vehicle is. We're collecting photos now and downlinking those. And we're going to get a picture of [NASA's] Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter camera from above and we'll confirm that over the coming days." Altemus was ref ... Read full article.