Recently, two events — the second attempt by Intuitive Machines to land on the moon and the eighth test of the SpaceX Starship — proved an old adage: Rocket science is really hard.

Both of these examples took place on the same day, March 6.

First, a Texas company called Intuitive Machines attempted to land its Athena spacecraft on the Mons Mouton region of the lunar south pole. However, the laser range finders of the vehicle failed, placing it 250 meters away from its intended landing site, in the midst of a sloped crater. Like Intuitive Machines’ first attempt, the Odysseus, this lander fell on its side. Although Athena returned some data and an image, it was unable to recharge its batteries and was therefore lost in short order.

Later that day, SpaceX launched the eighth test of its Starship super rocket. At first, the flight went well, with the Super Heavy first stage separating from the Starship second stage and being caught on the ground by the Mechazilla “chopsticks.” Then things took a horrible turn. The Starship suffered a “rapid unscheduled disassembly.” In what seemed like a repeat of the previous test flight, pieces of the giant rocket streaked across the sky over Florida and the Bahamas.

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