Lunar Exploration Heats Up: Athena and Blue Ghost Landers Embark on Missions to the Moon
The moon is experiencing a surge in activity as two separate lunar landers, Athena and Blue Ghost, have recently reached Earth’s celestial neighbor, embarking on missions to explore different regions and pave the way for future astronaut landings. These expeditions, orchestrated by Intuitive Machines and Firefly Aerospace respectively, mark a significant step in NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to establish a sustainable presence on the moon and use it as a stepping stone for missions to Mars.
Athena, the lunar lander operated by Houston-based Intuitive Machines, has captured stunning imagery of Earth from lunar orbit, marking its first up-close look since embarking on its journey less than a week ago. The six-legged spacecraft, launched from Florida on Wednesday, has been circling the moon approximately every two hours in preparation for its planned landing attempt on Thursday.
"The images we’re receiving from Athena are incredible," said a spokesperson for Intuitive Machines. "They offer a unique perspective of our home planet from the vantage point of our lunar neighbor, highlighting the beauty and fragility of Earth."
Meanwhile, Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander has already successfully touched down on the moon and commenced its two-week surface operations. This achievement signifies a major milestone for the Texas-based company and contributes to NASA’s broader goals of lunar exploration.
Both lunar landers are on missions for NASA, which has invested tens of millions of dollars in Firefly Aerospace and Intuitive Machines to develop spacecraft capable of exploring different areas of the moon. These ventures are part of a broader initiative to finance uncrewed lunar missions, providing valuable data and resources to support the return of astronauts as early as 2027 under NASA’s Artemis program. NASA views the moon as a crucial testing ground to prepare astronauts and their vehicles for the more challenging journey to Mars.
Athena’s journey began atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, launching from the historic launch pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center – the same site that hosted NASA’s Apollo moon mission launches. Shortly after launch, the spacecraft, designated as IM-2, captured its initial "selfies" with Earth as a backdrop. Athena then executed a series of three maneuvers that concluded on Sunday, fine-tuning its trajectory towards the moon before entering lunar orbit on Monday, according to NASA.
Intuitive Machines anticipates Athena will orbit the moon 39 times as the spacecraft awaits sunrise at the moon’s south pole. This strategic positioning will ensure sunlight is available to power operations upon landing. Athena’s next maneuver will bring the lander as close to the lunar surface as possible, setting the stage for the landing attempt.
The region where Athena will attempt to land is near a plateau known as Mons Mouton, which represents a more southerly location than any previous lander has reached. This mesa-like lunar mountain rises above a landscape characterized by craters, including the Shackleton Crater – a perpetually dark and cold region believed to be abundant in water ice and other volatile materials that readily transform into gas.
Athena is scheduled to touch down around 12:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 6, at the moon’s south pole. NASA and Intuitive Machines will provide live coverage of the landing, beginning at 11:30 a.m. EST, accessible on the IM-2 mission page and NASA’s streaming service. NASA will also provide written updates on its Artemis blog.
As the mission name indicates, IM-2 is the second mission NASA has contracted Intuitive Machines to execute. Intuitive Machines achieved a significant milestone in February 2024 when its spacecraft, Odysseus, became the first commercially built lunar lander to successfully reach the moon. This lunar mission also marked the United States’ return to the moon for the first time in over five decades since the conclusion of NASA’s Apollo program.
The solar-powered Athena lander, a hexagonal cylinder capable of carrying up to 300 pounds of cargo, is on the verge of potentially becoming the company’s second spacecraft to land on the moon. The $62.5 million mission is part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, or CLPS. This program enables NASA to pursue lower-cost methods of financing lunar deliveries without developing spacecraft in-house, as it has historically done.
The primary experiment onboard Athena is NASA’s PRIME-1 (Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment-1), which will explore for resources such as water in the lunar soil. These resources could be extracted and used by future explorers to produce fuel or breathable oxygen. Additionally, an instrument known as a laser retroreflector array (LRA) located on the lander’s top deck will be able to reflect laser light back at incoming spacecraft, providing a crucial capability to precisely determine the locations of lunar landers. Other objectives include testing a Nokia LTE 4G communications system and deploying a propulsive drone capable of traversing the lunar surface.
Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost spacecraft took a longer path to reach the moon, successfully landing on Sunday after launching on January 15 from the same launch site and atop the same model of rocket. After orbiting the moon for over two weeks, the Blue Ghost lander, standing over 6 feet tall, took about an hour to descend and land upright. Soon after, the lander captured stunning images of a sunrise, which Firefly Aerospace released on Monday.
Blue Ghost’s landing site is near a volcanic feature called Mons Latreille on the moon’s Earth-facing side. This region is situated within Mare Crisium, a 300-mile-wide basin in the northeast quadrant of the moon’s near side, believed to have been formed by early volcanic eruptions and flooded with basaltic lava over 3 billion years ago.
Now that it has landed, the lander has commenced its $101.5 million mission of deploying a suite of 10 NASA science instruments, including an X-band antenna that enables Firefly Aerospace to rapidly downlink high-definition imagery, videos, and science data. This technology will be utilized for a complete lunar day, equivalent to about 14 Earth days. The combined missions of Athena and Blue Ghost represent a new era of lunar exploration, driven by commercial partnerships and focused on establishing a sustainable presence on the moon.
