ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – St. Petersburg-based area startup Lonestar Information Holdings says its lunar knowledge heart is the one surviving payload after a personal lunar lander got here down sideways on the moon.
Lunar lander declared lifeless
The backstory:
The Nova-C lander, named Athena by Intuitive Machines, launched onboard a SpaceX rocket in late February.
A view from the Nova-C Athena lander moments earlier than touching down close to the lunar south pole on Thursday, March 6, 2025. (Intuitive Machines)
On Thursday, the lander missed its mark by greater than 800 ft and ended up in a frigid crater, with the corporate declaring it lifeless on Friday.
Lonestar’s Freedom Information Middle
Native perspective:
Amid tens of hundreds of thousands of {dollars}’ price of experiments onboard the lander was Lonestar’s Freedom Information Middle, carrying 8 terabytes price of fabric from the State of Florida in addition to different authorities and enterprise organizations.
The info heart is encased in a 3D-printed shell constructed to endure harsh lunar situations for greater than a millennium, the corporate stated.
Pictured: A reproduction of the 3D-printed case that holds Lonestar’s lunar knowledge heart.
Lonestar instructed FOX 13 its purpose is to protect such information 240,000 miles from Earth, away from any potential pure disasters, cyber threats, and different dangers.
“Our core mission is saving Earth’s knowledge, one byte at a time,” stated Chris Stott, CEO of Lonestar, in a latest information launch. “However we additionally need to encourage—this mission is a mix of expertise and artwork that can final for a thousand years.”
The corporate monitored the mission from its pop-up “mission management heart” in St. Pete.
Pictured: Lonestar’s pop-up mission management operation in St. Pete.
On Friday, Lonestar confirmed the info heart is undamaged regardless of the botched touchdown on the moon’s floor.
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What’s subsequent:
Lonestar says it hopes to develop its lunar infrastructure, offering off-world knowledge backup for companies, governments, and even future area missions.
The Supply: This story was written with data supplied by Lonestar Information Holdings, together with earlier FOX 13 and FOX Information Digital reviews. The Related Press contributed to this report.
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