Intuitive Machines confirms that Athena has landed 250 meters away from it's planned landing side in a moon crater. The lander fall to the side. First it was possible to deploy payload and start the charging of the batteries. However the sun power was not enough and the batteries depleted today. There is less hope to recharge Athena again. If the instruments of the payload had been able to collect data is unknown. Currently the data of Athena is been analyzed. However the mission has ended much earlier than expected.

Credit: https://www.intuitivemachines.com/im-2

Credit: https://www.intuitivemachines.com/im-2

Credit: https://www.intuitivemachines.com/im-2

We look forward to the mission. Athena is sending and receiving data and the mission is on. Let's hope that most of the mission objectives can be reached.

That's all for now from our live coverage. We thank you for your attention. See you next time. Clear skies and bye bye.

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NASA and Intuitive Machines have confirmed that Athena stands on the side. Nevertheless it was possible to deploy payload, also the NASA PRIME-1 instrument.

Credit: https://www.intuitivemachines.com/im-2

Athena has landed at a location on the moon where no man has been before. The correct location of Athena is still under investigation to continue with the mission after knowing the exact location of Athena.

The navigation systems, controlled from Earth, worked well to bring any kind of payload into the orbit of the moon in the future.

It's also possible to deploy payloads. Not all mission objective can be reached but NASA is hopeful to collect as much as data from the payloads as possible.

NASA confirmed that Athena is not in the correct attitude. They are collecting pictures now to see how Athena stand on the moon. Athena's solar panels are charging the batteries. There is a communication uplink to the vehicle.

Athena has successfully landed on the moon yesterday. It took a while to get confirmation signals and information if Athena stand straight as expected. Athena has landed close to the south pole of the moon.

Moonshots - Book with amazing pictures from the Moon

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The drone investigating the moon crater is called Grace. The drone is equipped with several water detection instruments - also one of the DLR. It will investigate the crater for 45 Minutes until it takes a big jump out of the crater to transmit it's since data via the 4G network.

Other private companies instruments are at Athena. One of them is a data centre - the first on the moon.

Another instrument is a reflector, similar to the one we have on bikes, and is used as location marker for the satellite to localize Athena in the future.

Prime 1, a NASA instrument, should drill up to 1 meter into the lunar surface to take investigate the lunar soil. The mass spectrometers will analyze the composition of the lunar soil sample for water and other components.

Athena carries 11 science instruments and is 4.5 meters tall and 4.2 meters wide. Athena has a weight of around 475 kilograms and the payload is a weight of 100 kilograms.

Athena deploys the technology to provide help for humans to explore the moon and the solar system. Athena's 10 days mission on the moon will deploy a rover, will send a drone into a moon crater. To keep communication the Nokia 4G lunar communication system will be installed to send science data back to earth.

NASA wants to get the fully capacity of innovation by giving American companies the chance to develop and deploy technology for the Artemis program to use these technologies on the moon.

Get a look into the history and the objectives of the International Space Station.

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This mission is made to deliver the basic of exploration technology to the moon before astronauts return with the Artemis 3 Mission before 2030.

Athena was launched by Space X on February 26th. After deployment the engine had to fire 4 times to reach the orbit on her way to the moon.

The basic 4G hardware is the same as used on Earth but was strengthened by Nokia to make it work in the harsh environments of space and on the moon.

Athena is part of the private Intuitive Machines 2 program, partnering with NASA to provide support for the Artemis program. Athena will deploy a special device that will install the first 4G mobil data network on the moon.

We are now switching to our second space event from yesterday. The Intuitive Machines-2 Lunar Landing with the Moon lander Athena and a lot of interesting payload.

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According to the CEO of Ariane Space, 30 Ariane 6 flights are in the backlog and the next mission is already ahead.
Ariane 6 keeps the door open for Europe's sovereignty and independence to bring payload to space. This is more important than ever in these times.

CSO-3 was successfully deployed to it's orbit around Earth.

This is important for Europe especially in the current political times.
The space port, usually protected by French armed forces, was even more protected by armed forces caused by the importance of the CSO-3 satellite.

The MUSI program is an Earth observation system of three satellites and is designed for defence and security purposes. All three satellites are equipped with the latest generation of optical sensors and guarantee the continuity of France’s optical Earth surveillance resources, transmitting very high resolution (VHR) images for France’s armed forces and its European partners.

ESA has improved it's live camera broadcast from space. We see more live videos from the cameras of Ariane 6, instead of computer animations. They have indeed closed this gap to Space X and NASA live broadcasts.

CSO-1 and CSO-2 were both successfully launched in 2018 and 2020 by Arianespace. Each satellite was developed by Airbus Defence and Space as prime contractor, with Thales Alenia Space prime contractor for the VHR optical instrument.

On board of the Ariane 6 is a satellite of the French Defense Procurement Agency (DGA) called CSO-3. The satellite is suppose to provide to the MUSIS (Multinational Space-based Imaging System) program of the French Defense Procurement Agency (DGA) and the French Air and Space Force’s Space Command (CDE).

Ariane 6 has successfully launch from the European space port in Kourou, French-Guiana

Instead we will update you know with the most important information about both missions

As you may recognized we had to cancel our live coverage of the Ariane 6 launch + the Intuitive Machines 2 Lunar landing. We apologize for that.

We will update this thread tomorrow with updates about both events.

Welcome to our Live Coverage of ESA's Ariane 6 Launch & NASA’s Intuitive Machines-2 Lunar Landing

Our live coverage will start here and on BlueSky.
March 6th: 16:30 CEST (Ariane 6 Launch)
March 6th: 17:15 CEST (Intuitive Machines-2 Lunar Landing)

#ESA #Ariane6 #NASA #Artemis #Artemis2 #IntuitiveMachines2 #LunarLanding #Moon #Nokia #Space #science