Intuitive Machines has successfully landed on the Moon's south pole, carrying the celestial body's first data center from Lonestar Data.

However, the landing had complications, and 'Athena' is believed to be incorrectly oriented.

“We don’t believe we’re in the correct attitude on the surface of the Moon yet again," Steve Altemus, the chief executive of Intuitive Machines, said in a press conference.

The company said it was unsure just how tilted the lander is, adding that it may take several days to understand exactly what shape Athena is in.

The lander is generating some power with its solar panels, and is able to connect to ground stations to a limited degree.

It is similarly unclear what this means for the 'first data center on the Moon.' Lonestar has sent an 8TB SSD and a single Microchip PolaFire SoC FPGA, which the company will use to test the concept of lunar data centers and see how storage behaves on the surface.

The company previously tested a software-only deployment on Intuitive Machines' previous mission last year, but that landing fell on its side. Lonestar also tested its deployment during the journey to the Moon, and sent back data to Earth multiple times.

The Athena lander also includes a deployment from Nokia to test 4G/LTE communications on the lunar surface, which may now be unable to operate. We will update this story as we learn more.

We profile the project and more in the next issue of the DCD Magazine. Subscribe for free today.