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Lying sideways on the moon, the Athena lander is declared dead


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Published in Science and Technology on Friday, March 7th 2025 at 15:22 GMT by CNN   Print publication without navigation

  • 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.

The Athena lander, part of the Japanese company ispace's Hakuto-R Mission 1, has been declared dead after failing to achieve a soft landing on the Moon. Launched in December 2022, the lander was supposed to touch down in the Atlas crater but lost contact during its descent on April 25, 2023. Subsequent analysis of the data suggests that the lander likely crashed and is now lying sideways on the lunar surface. This mission aimed to be the first private company to successfully land on the Moon, but instead, it joins a list of failed lunar landing attempts. The failure was attributed to a software issue that caused the lander to misjudge its altitude, leading to fuel depletion before landing. Despite the setback, ispace is planning another attempt with Mission 2, targeting a landing in 2024.

Read the Full CNN Article at:
[ https://www.msn.com/en-us/technology/space-exploration/lying-sideways-on-the-moon-the-athena-lander-is-declared-dead/ar-AA1Atqdg ]

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