Lunar Lander Trips and Dies Inside South Pole Crater

Houston-based space company Intuitive Machines' Athena lunar lander isn't doing so hot. The lander made its attempt at a landing near the Moon's Mons Mouton, a flat-topped mountain roughly 100 miles from the south pole, around noon on Thursday. But things didn't quite go as planned. The lander touched down sideways within a crater near the Moon's south pole, causing it to tip over. The company's predecessor, Odyssey, suffered a strikingly similar fate last year. "We don't believe we're in the correct attitude on the surface of the Moon yet again," Intuitive Machines CEO Steve Altemus announced during a Thursday press conference. An image released by the company today shows the toppled spacecraft with a half-lit Earth glinting in the background. It's a bittersweet resting place for what could've been the second successful landing on the Moon in less than three days. Intuitive Machines Executes Southernmost Lunar Landing and Operates Payloads. The full release is published on the ... Read full article.