“Any time humanity puts a lander on the moon, it’s a good day.” So says Tim Crain, chief technology officer for Intuitive Machines (IM), the company that put a lunar lander on Mons Mouton, a crater roughly 100 miles from the moon’s south pole earlier today. While there are still a lot of questions to be answered, what we know is that this lander, named Athena after the Greek goddess of wisdom and warfare (in case you were wondering how those two go together) fared better than last year’s attempt, which tipped over after landing.

The lander is carrying, among other things, three robotic rovers, a drill to check for signs of frozen water, and Intuitive Machines’s Micro Nova Hopper, named after famed computer scientist and engineer, Grace Hopper. While there were big plans for all the equipment, what scientists will actually be able to do with the machines remains to be seen. IM’s CEO Steve Altemus, said at this afternoon’s press conference, “We don’t believe we’re in the correct attitude on the surface of the moon yet again.” IM’s stock fell 20 points on that sad news.

Still, both Altemus and Crain are convinced that there is still a lot of data that can be collected even if the lander is on its side. “There’s quite a number of objectives we can meet,” Altemus said. While priorities have yet to be set, there is optimism in the fact that controllers have been able to turn various landers and machines on and off, indicating that they are not damaged beyond any ability to function. Clayton Turner, associate administrator of NASA’s space technology mission directorate, suggests that there are scenarios in which TRIDENT, the drill that is to study the frozen water content of the lunar dirt, could still function even if the spacecraft is not perfectly upright. Whether the Hopper is still operational is not known at this point.

“We’re excited to see what science and what technology we can do,” said Nicola Fox, the associate administrator of NASA’s science mission directorate.

Throughout the news conference, a great deal of care was taken to emphasize the cooperative working of the ‘lunar community,’ that combination of both public and private sector companies involved in sending missions to the moon. Both SpaceX and Blue Ghost were given positive mentions during the conversation. The mix of public and private resources, in which NASA largely plays the role of customer, is an ever-evolving landscape that not only blends different studies in science and technology but adds a sometimes baffling political component as well.

The coming days will yield a great deal more information about the lander and what kind of data we can expect from the mission. IM has another mission scheduled for 2026 but said today that the mission may have to be pushed out as lunar satellites are being put in place.

With President Felonious Punk having made returning to the moon a priority for his administration (largely for selfish reasons), the science and technology communities are happy to be getting all the support available, especially in the face of federal layoffs and contract cancelations.