Athena Spacecraft Launches to the Moon, as Intuitive Machines Aims for Historic Second Lunar Landing
The American company achieved the first successful moon landing by a private spacecraft last year. Now, it has sent a new mission to the south pole, carrying science instruments for NASA
Texas-based company Intuitive Machines is gearing up for a second attempt to put a spacecraft on the moon, with its new Athena lander expected to touch down on March 6. Its latest mission will aim for the lunar south pole, which scientists believe could hold water ice, an essential resource for future human exploration.
Athena launched on Wednesday evening aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida and is now traveling in a “high-energy fastball pitch towards the moon,” as Intuitive Machines’ CEO, Steve Altemus, told Jackie Wattles of CNN last year.
“Everything (has to) come together perfectly to go right, to fire the engine, to put us on our way to the moon,” he told the publication this week.
Once Athena makes it to the moon’s surface, it will have less than one lunar day—about ten Earth days—to complete its goals before lunar night begins and darkness sets in. The spacecraft is solar-powered, so it will rely on the sun to generate energy during its time on the surface.
However, on March 14 at about 2 a.m. Eastern time, an eclipse will occur as Earth passes between the sun and the moon, causing a brief period of darkness. During this time, Athena will need to draw power from its batteries, but it should be able to survive the temporary drop in solar energy.
Athena is a follow-up to the company’s first lunar lander, Odysseus, which made history last year by becoming the first commercial lander to successfully reach the moon’s surface. Still, its landing was far from perfect: The spacecraft tipped over as it touched down, damaging key instruments.
This time, Intuitive Machines is confident that their improvements—including an updated laser altimeter, the instrument that was partially to blame for the damage to Odysseus—will ensure a more successful landing.
“Certainly, we will be better this time than we were last time,” Trent Martin, senior vice president of space systems at Intuitive Machines, tells Marcia Dunn of the Associated Press. “But you never know what could happen.”
Athena’s landing site, Mons Mouton, lies 100 miles from the lunar south pole, an area of significant interest in recent years. Scientists suspect these southern regions are rich in water ice, which could potentially be transformed into drinking water, oxygen or rocket fuel for future lunar missions.
The lander is designed to withstand the harsh conditions of the moon, with specially engineered six-legged landing gear that can stabilize the spacecraft, including on uneven terrain. The mission will also transport scientific instruments for NASA as part of the agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, which aims to leverage private companies to deliver payloads to the moon at a lower cost.
One of these items is a drill that will plunge three feet into the lunar ground, dredging up a small pile of soil. Then, a mass spectrometer will analyze that soil for trace elements and compounds, with a focus on finding water and other volatiles that could support long-term lunar exploration.
“This mission is much more complex than our first mission,” Martin tells Joey Roulette of Reuters. “The most critical piece is making sure that we land upright so that we can get on to the science and technology demonstrations that we need to do on the surface of the moon.”
Athena will also test a small “hopper” rover named Grace, after the pioneering computer scientist Grace Hopper, which is designed to jump across the moon’s surface and explore a permanently shadowed crater near the landing site. If successful, Grace will offer a unique way to explore regions that are difficult to reach with traditional rovers.
The @Int_Machines Hopper robot – heading to the Moon tonight aboard the IM-2 mission – will deploy from the Athena lander and hop into a nearby crater, providing a first look into undiscovered regions on the lunar surface. More about this novel tech: https://t.co/c52kK6Qp3n pic.twitter.com/Qz4RyAY3Co
— NASA Technology (@NASA_Technology) February 26, 2025
Intuitive Machines’ mission is not the only one targeting the moon in 2025. Two other private lunar landers launched toward Earth’s natural satellite in January. One of them, Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost, is expected to touch down on March 2, beating Athena because of its head start. The second lander, named Resilience and developed by Japan’s Ispace, is intended to take a longer route to the moon and arrive later in the spring.
“It’s an amazing time. There’s so much energy,” NASA’s science mission chief Nicky Fox tells the Associated Press.
As Athena approaches the moon, the private space race is heating up. With the next few weeks marking a pivotal moment for commercial space exploration, these lunar missions could help pave the way for humanity’s future presence on the moon and beyond.