> Athena, a probe launched by [...] Intuitive Machines (IM) last month, touched down about 250 miles from its intended landing site near the moon’s south pole on Thursday. Initially at least, it was generating some power and sending information to Earth as engineers worked to make sense of data showing an “incorrect attitude”.
> On Friday, however, IM declared Athena dead.
250 miles off-course, and their second flop in a row. I'd certainly cross them off the Approved Vendor list.
About that "gotta be tall & tippy to fit inside the Falcon's payload fairing" idea. No, it does not. The payload fairing was jettisoned ~1/4M miles before Athena got to the moon. So plenty of time for the lander to deploy some folded-up "spider legs" landing gear, making "land and fall over" virtually impossible.