Topline
A lunar lander built by Intuitive Machines is scheduled to descend to the moon’s surface today, potentially marking the second landing by a private company on the moon in the last week, roughly a year after the aerospace firm completed the first lunar landing by an American spacecraft in decades.
The spacecraft traveled for about a week before approaching the moon’s south pole.
Intuitive Machines
Key Facts
Intuitive Machines expects its Athena lander to touch down on the moon’s surface at about 12:32 p.m. EST on Thursday.
A livestream of the event—cohosted by NASA and Intuitive Machines—will start around 11:30 a.m. on NASA+, and Intuitive Machines will post updates on its X account.
The Athena lander, equipped with a drill, a robotic “hopper” and a rover, will land on the Mons Mouton, a plateau located about 100 miles from the moon’s south pole, according to NASA.
Intuitive Machine’s IM-2 mission launched aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida last week.
The lander entered lunar orbit about 62 miles above the moon’s surface on Monday, when Intuitive Machines said its spacecraft began to reduce its velocity by about 4,000 mph during its descent.
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What Will Athena Do On The Moon?
Athena’s “hopper,” nicknamed “Grace” by Intuitive Machines, will explore about 650 feet of ground while searching a nearby crater for deposits of ice and the possible presence of hydrogen. A rover—named MAPP, or Mobile Autonomous Prospecting Platform—will roam the landing site and take 3D images of the moon’s terrain. A small rover will navigate around MAPP’s roof to check temperature readings. Athena will deploy a 4G communications system developed by Nokia, which said the cellular network could be used to relay information between different spacecraft on the moon. The lander is also carrying technology from NASA that will measure the presence of resources from lunar soil that the agency says could be extracted and used by “future explorers” to produce fuel or breathable oxygen. Athena is powered by solar panels, meaning the spacecraft will have about 10 days to complete its observations before the sun sets over its landing site.
Tangent
Firefly Aerospace landed its Blue Ghost spacecraft on the moon early Sunday morning, about 2,000 miles from Athena’s landing site. Blue Ghost is equipped with NASA-funded technology to collect data for the agency’s Artemis program, which plans to send a crewed mission to the moon’s south pole in 2027.
What To Watch For
SpaceX rescheduled an eighth test flight for its Starship rocket for Thursday. The rocket—considered the largest ever—will be tested after it lost connection and experienced a “rapid unscheduled disassembly” during its seventh test flight in January. SpaceX said it made “several hardware and operational changes” to the spacecraft, after a probe determined the rocket’s disassembly was caused by an oxygen leak, flashes and “sustained fires” in its aft section. Another lander, created by Japan-based ispace, is scheduled to touch down on the moon’s surface in the spring.
Key Background
Intuitive Machines became the first private company to land a spacecraft on the moon’s surface with its Odysseus lunar lander in February 2024. It also marked the first American spacecraft to land on the moon in over 50 years. During Odysseus’ flight, the Houston-based firm lost communication with the spacecraft just before its landing. Intuitive Machines announced Odysseus landed “upright” and was “starting to send data,” though the company later determined the spacecraft had landed on its side. Odysseus remained in stable condition, though its sideways landing blocked exposure to its solar panels, preventing it from recharging. Engineers failed to flip a switch that would have enabled lasers to guide Odysseus to a proper landing, Intuitive Machines said.
Further Reading
SpaceX Rocket Will Launch Another Private Lunar Lander Today—Here’s How To Watch (Forbes)
Intuitive Machine’s Odysseus Lunar Lander Could Lose Power Within 20 Hours After Landing Sideways (Forbes)