Flight controllers struggle to confirm status of Intuitive Machines’ probe in firm’s second lunar landing in just over a year

The Athena robotic spacecraft has touched down on the lunar surface in the second moon landing for the US space company Intuitive Machines in little more than a year.

The nearly 5 metre tall probe set down shortly after 5.30pm UK time on Thursday after a tense descent to Mons Mouton, a high and relatively flat mountain about 100 miles from the moon’s south pole.