Athena landed in a small crater and tipped over on its side. The mission has officially ended without the payload ever being deployed. I was particularly excited about the hopper payload that was to explore inside the permanently shaded Mouton crater for ice.

That's two attempts for IM, and two landers tipped over on their sides. Time for a redesign on the lander? A wider base and maybe some way to reorient itself if it tips over?

It's been a bad week for space in general. Along with this failure, private asteroid mining startup company AstroForge has lost its Odin spacecraft that was headed for near earth asteroid 2022 OB5, and SpaceX's Starship Flight 8 lost it's upper stage for the second time in a row shortly after liftoff.