This orientation prevented the lander's solar panels from capturing enough sunlight, and Intuitive Machines declared Athena dead on March 7. (The company's first moon lander, named Odysseus, also tipped over during its historic February 2024 touchdown but was able to operate for longer on the lunar surface.)

The Houston-based company that was set to deliver a historic water-hunting mission to the lunar south pole says its Athena lander is dead on the moon.

A day after a live webcast captured a somber-looking mission control room in the minutes surrounding its planned Thursday landing time of 12:32 p.m., the company has confirmed on its website that its IM-2 Nova-C class lunar lander is on its side — a fate that matches its first lander, IM-1, that toppled upon landing in Feb. 2024.

Intuitive Machines' Athena moon lander is giving us some incredible views from lunar orbit ahead of its March 6 touchdown attempt.

Chris Stott, founder of St. Petersburg’s Lonestar Data Holdings, relayed the news to the rest of the team on video call. An unmanned lunar lander named Athena, carrying the company’s 8-terabyte data center,

The Mobile Autonomous Prospecting Platform (MAPP) rover aboard the toppled Intuitive Machines Athena lunar lander survived the landing that took out its parent spacecraft and even managed to transmit some data from the moon's surface.

Data sent to Earth by its MAPP moon rover on Intuitive Machines' ill-fated IM-2 mission will help Colorado company Lunar Outpost prepare for future lunar voyages.