A new lunar lander, Athena, has joined two robotic landers already in transit towards the moon. Built by Houston-based Intuitive Machines, Athena will make a daring descent towards the moon’s south pole on its mission IM-2. The region is considered crucial to the modern lunar space race due to potential stores of water ice.
Athena, equipped with a suite of scientific instruments, including NASA’s Prime-1 drill and a tiny robotic hopper called Micro Nova Hopper, will land at Mons Mouton – a plateau near the lunar south pole. The landing site offers the “Goldilocks zone” for sunlight, providing enough power to support a roughly 10-day mission.
The lander’s navigation system will have to be more accurate than its predecessor, IM-1, with a target landing accuracy of just 50 meters. Once on the moon, Athena will deploy smaller spacefaring vehicles, including the NASA-made Lunar Trailblazer probe and a microwave-size spacecraft from California-based AstroForge.
The mission is expected to operate for about 10 days, during which time Athena’s instruments will test out the use of cellular networks on the moon as part of a NASA-sponsored experiment spearheaded by Nokia. The success of IM-2 will mark an important milestone in the search for water ice and other volatiles on the lunar surface.
The mission timeline includes a series of scientific objectives, including mapping the distribution of water on the surface and testing out new technologies in extreme environments. With its cutting-edge technology and ambitious goals, Athena is set to make significant contributions to our understanding of the moon’s south pole and its potential resources.
Source: https://edition.cnn.com/2025/02/26/science/intuitive-machines-lunar-lander-launch-spacex/index.html