Scheduled to appear in space this week, the Robot Moonlander is set to mark the second moon mission of a company that made history last year by becoming the first private company to successfully land on the moon’s surface.
The spacecraft, named Athena, was built by Intuitive Machines, a company based in Texas. It is equipped with a drill and various instruments to analyze the chemical composition of rocks and soil beneath the lunar surface.
The mission is part of NASA’s Commercial Moon Payload Services Program, which aims to assist private companies in developing Moonlanders. The anticipated landing site is the plateau of the lunar Antarctic region, specifically a flat mountain known as Monsmouton.
NASA is particularly interested in the Antarctic region of the Moon due to the presence of water ice in permanently shadowed craters. The presence of water could be crucial for establishing permanent bases on the moon, and Athena’s mission will focus on searching for groundwater.
Athena is scheduled to launch on top of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Wednesday at 7:17pm from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The same rocket will also launch a lunar mapping satellite developed by NASA, called the Lunar Trailblazer.
In addition to these missions, NASA plans to send the Spherex Space Observatory into orbit on Thursday to study the origins of the universe. SpaceX’s Starship Megarocke is set for its eighth test flight on Friday, and another robot Moonlander developed by Firefly Aerospace will attempt to land on the moon over the weekend.
Following its release, the Athena Lander is expected to travel for about a week before landing, potentially as early as March 6th. The mission will also test a 4G communications system developed by Nokia on the moon’s surface.
During the mission, Athena Lander will deploy a drone named Grace to explore the landing site through a series of hops. The company aims to replicate their historic moon landing success from February 2024 near Marapart A crater in the Antarctic region of the Moon.
The goal is for Athena Lander to successfully land and fulfill its mission objectives, paving the way for future lunar exploration and potentially aiding in establishing human presence on the moon.
Source: www.nbcnews.com
