Photos of a failed lunar landing probe are released. Why is it so difficult to land a spacecraft on the moon?

A lunar probe funded by NASA and operated by the American space exploration company Intuitive Machines was scheduled to land on the Moon on March 6, 2025, after orbiting the Moon. However, photos released the following day showed the spacecraft tilted at an angle, with experts discussing the difficulties of landing on the Moon.

Moon photo reveals how lunar landing just went wrong | Mashable
https://mashable.com/article/moon-landing-sideways-intuitive-machines-image

Below is a photo of the Athena lunar lander released by Intuitive Machines, showing Athena lying on the moon's surface with the Earth in the background.

Intuitive Machines Executes Southernmost Lunar Landing and Operates Payloads.
The full release is published on the IM-2 mission webpage. https://t.co/6W5wibbV71
(7MAR2025 0829 CST) #AdLunam #IM2 #Athena pic.twitter.com/xDM3Fd9rE7

— Intuitive Machines (@Int_Machines) March 7, 2025

Athena was launched as part of the IM-2 mission , which aims to be a giant leap forward in lunar exploration. Since its launch on February 26, 2025, Athena has been a great success during its flight to and around the Moon, delivering images of Earth like the ones shown below with stable communications.

After liftoff on February 26, Athena established a stable attitude, solar charging, and radio communications contact with our mission operations center in Houston. The lander is in excellent health, sending selfies, and preparing for a series of planned main engine firings to… pic.twitter.com/Re5IgDDPBY

— Intuitive Machines (@Int_Machines) February 27, 2025

However, upon landing on March 6, 2025, Athena was found lying in a crater about 250 meters away from the planned landing site. With Athena lying down, the photos it sends will be on its side, and it will not be in the correct position for solar charging. Intuitive Machines said in a statement, 'Given the direction of the sun, the orientation of the solar panels, and the frigid temperatures in the crater, we do not expect Athena to be able to recharge. The mission has ended and the team continues to evaluate the data collected during the mission.'

The Intuitive Machines spacecraft also failed to land on the Moon in February 2024, breaking a leg and tipping over, making it difficult to continue the mission. Below is a photo of the Moon taken when the Odysseus spacecraft tilted while approaching the landing site.

Odysseus captured this image approximately 35 seconds after pitching over during its approach to the landing site. The camera is on the starboard aft-side of the lander in this phase. 2/5 (26FEB2024 0745 CST) pic.twitter.com/oUcjk3bCqW

— Intuitive Machines (@Int_Machines) February 26, 2024

A similar landing failure was also reported in January 2024 for Japan's SLIM lunar landing demonstration vehicle. SLIM landed on the moon at the targeted location and completed its mission of releasing a lunar exploration robot, but like Athena and Odysseus, it failed to land properly and was unable to supply power from its solar panels.

'SLIM' successfully landed on the moon, fulfilling the main objective of the mission and receiving a 'perfect score' but the landing posture is also a hot topic - GIGAZINE

'I think we can all agree that landing on the moon is extremely difficult,' said Nicola Fox, director of NASA's Science Mission Directorate, at a press conference revealing the possibility of an Intuitive Machines landing accident. One reason for this is that the moon has no atmosphere to stabilize the landing. If there is an atmosphere like on Earth, it is possible to slow down the craft and land slowly using a parachute, but in the case of the moon, the atmosphere is very thin, so the only way to slow down for landing is to inject a large amount of propellant. Since there is only a limited amount of fuel available for landing, it is necessary to land in one shot, and if the landing site is extremely bumpy or the timing of the propellant ejection is a little long, the probe will fall over.

In addition, when checking the landing site, the spacecraft will rely on the onboard computer to head to the designated landing site, and will use cameras during descent to map the ground and avoid craters and rocks at the landing site. However, Athena is intended to assist the Artemis program , which aims to explore the south pole of the moon in particular, and because it landed near the south pole where the sun does not reach, the landing site was in shadow and difficult to confirm adequately.

Athena's mission was to explore the Antarctic region, which is expected to be rich in resources but has not been explored much, as well as to test the performance of drills that will be used to excavate ice and other underground resources for the Artemis manned lunar mission. Drilling ice is essential for producing rocket fuel, which is necessary to establish a long-term presence on the Moon, a key part of the Artemis program, so a failure to land Athena could affect major Artemis plans.