IM-2 Is On the Moon, But IM’s Not Sure Where
Intuitive Machines got its second lander, IM-2, onto the lunar surface today, but like IM-1 last year it apparently is not in the correct orientation. IM-1 broke a leg and landed on its side, but company officials are not sure what happened this time. In fact, they don’t know if the Athena lander is upright, upside down, on its side, or somewhere in-between. They are communicating with Athena through a telemetry channel and can command some of the payloads, but it may take a couple of days to figure out the answers.
Anticipation was high as Athena made its way down to the surface today after an 8-day journey from Earth.
Just four days ago another commercial company, Firefly, successfully landed Blue Ghost Mission-1, the third in a series of robotic lunar landers part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payloads Services (CLPS) initiative. Another CLPS landing just four days later would be icing on the cake.
IM-2 appeared to be going exceptionally well. It carries 10 payloads, some from NASA and some from other customers. NASA and IM jointly webcast the landing, which was expected about 12:30 pm ET.
As the time neared, it became apparent that something was awry. Mission controllers reported the engine was still firing after it was supposed to stop. The good news was that if the engine was firing, the vehicle must be upright.
They also had images taken by Athena at 10 kilometers altitude as it was descending.
Nonetheless, as the webcast ended, the fate of IM-2 was quite unclear.
At a post-landing news conference this afternoon, that was, in fact, the message. They know it’s on the Moon. They know they are communicating with it. They know it is in the vicinity of the planned landing spot on Mons Mouton, a high plateau just five degrees from the Moon’s South Pole. But that’s about it.
IM President and CEO Steve Altemus started off by saying “we don’t believe we’re in the correct attitude on the Moon’s surface yet again.” The “yet again” reference was to IM-1 that landed on its side. NASA and IM insist it was a success anyway.
The message from the press conference is “stay tuned.”
The lander has a number of cameras that can help them understand the lander’s position relative to the surface. They also are waiting for NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, circling the Moon since 2009, to come over the area and determine where they are.
IM co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Tim Crain said he’s certain they are on Mons Mouton, the intended landing site, but not exactly where. “Our precision landing target was a 50 meter landing site. We’re probably outside of that.”
IM-2 has 10 payloads with innovative objectives.
- PRIME-1 drill: NASA
- Lunar Retroreflector Array: NASA
- Nokia Lunar Surface Communications System: Nokia/NASA
- Micro Nova Hopper: Intuitive Machines/NASA
- Lunar Radiometer (on the Hopper): German Aerospace Center (DLR)
- Puli Lunar Water Snooper (on the Hopper): Puli Space Technologies Ltd. (Hungary)/NASA
- Mobile Autonomous Prospecting Platform rover: Lunar Outpost
- YAOKI rover: Dymon Co, Ltd (Japan)
- Freedom (a data storage system): Lonestar Data Holdings
- Omni-Heat Infinity and Omni-Shade Sun Deflector (attached to the lander): Columbia Sportswear
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