They had the altimeter fail on the previous mission too. Seems like a fairly crucial component of a moon lander.

Armchair rocket scientist here, but if I were on that engineering team I'd lobby hard for less science payloads and more backups for critical instruments for the actual flight of the craft.

The rover and hopper and drill etc all sound cool yes, but worthless if you can't land. Again. For the second time. Because the same critical component failed, again. With apparently no backup, again.

Of course, it sounds so simple. I am sure there is more to it (e.g. perhaps they had backups and everything worked, but they just weren't fit for purpose?)