Another moon landing today, this time at the South Pole – San Diego Union -Tribune

A private company will try to finish a quick punch on the face of the moon today while intuitive machines seek to follow the recent success of Lunar Landing of Firefly Aerospace, but this time on the South Pole.

Athena Lander, the company based in Houston, in the IM-2 mission, aims for a HE at 12:32 p.m., the touchdown in a lunar set called Mons Mouton, one of the potential landing points of NASA for future human missions as part of its Artemis program.

It would be the second robotic moon landing in just five days after the success of Sunday by Blue Ghost Lander of Firefly, which was in the northeast quadrant of the moon.

Unlike the long journey of Firefly on the Moon, which was launched in mid-January before making the final descent 45 days later, intuitive machines opted for a quick route, after launching from Kennedy Space Center at the top of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on February 26. Once he landed, he will have about 10 days of daylight Lunar to complete his scientific experiences.

The two missions were partially funded by the commercial program of NASA lunar payload services, which seeks to transform the agency to simply become a private business client when it has to obtain something on the moon.

For intuitive machines, this is the second attempt to land the company of the company, having had a touch of sweet partially succeeded last year also near the South Pole with its first Lander named Ulysses. This Lander has taken a tour on one side, limiting the usefulness of its scientific experiences from NASA.

For Athena, he marks the first expedition of the commercial industry to the South Pole with major useful charges designed to test it as a future site for greater human exploration, in particular tools in search of ice.

“We know because of the tilt of the moon, that craters near the poles are permanently shaded. They never see the sun, so they are extremely cold, and we think that water and other volatiles could accumulate inside these craters and in the polar region, “said Ben Bussey, chief scientist of intuitive machines. “This represents a resource for future robotic and human exploration.”

The main payload of NASA is the prime-1 exercise, which means Polar Resources Mining Experiment 1. It seems to dig and analyze the lunar regolith as deep as 3 feet, on hunting, especially for frozen water.

NASA paid to the company 62.5 million dollars to transport the Prime-1 exercise and six other useful charges from NASA. But the Lander also has useful loads of Lonestar Data Holdings, Columbia Sportswear, Nokia, Lunar Outpos, Puli Space, Dymon Co. Ltd. and the German aerospace center.

Nokia equipment will be affixed to the landing, but designed to communicate with a mini rover and what is called a hopper, which will be deployed and will move away from the landing.

The Mobile Autonomous Prospecting Platform (MAPP) Rover is the lunar outpost. Cameras transmitter, it has 4G / LTE antennas, which seek to create what would be the first cellular network on the Moon, so that it can transmit images which would then be relayed on Earth. The rover will also try to collect a regolith as proof of concept, and technically sell this regolith to NASA, although it can be long before NASA can recover it, if ever.

It also presents what would be considered an even smaller rover on the top of the rover, the prototype robotic swarm bears astro, “which will roll around the MAPP roof to take temperature readings and monitor its operation”, according to Lunar Outpost.

The Micro Nova Hopper, which is called Grace, has its own propulsion system which allows it to keep a series of jumps from the landing. Essentially a drone powered by rocket, it is designed to make five jumps by targeting the exploration of a permanently shaded region close to the surface of the Moon.

“We are testing technology, proving that we can take a drone, if you want, on the surface of the moon, and fly to places where Rovers cannot go,” said Trent Martin, vice-president of Space Systems. “We believe it is the future of this technology. We absolutely believe that there is a place for Rovers on the Moon … But there is also a place for hoppers and technologies that allow you to descend into extreme environments where you cannot drive your rover.

Nicki Fox, NASA associate administrator for its scientific mission management, is excited not only for the main payload of NASA Drill, but also for technological demonstrations of Hopper and Nokia communication systems.

“These three technologies will open the door and demonstrate the science that we have never done before,” she said. “They will show how we are going to live and work on the lunar surface and prepare for humans on Mars.”

Originally published: March 6, 2025 at 9:17 PST