For the second time in less than a week, an American spacecraft of private construction will try to land on the moon.
The robotic landing, called Athena, was developed by the company based in Texas, intuitive machines. He threw himself in space on February 26 and has spent last week traveling to the moon.
With approximately the size of a dishwasher, the six -legged ship aims to land in a place in the Polar region of the southern moon, then spend a week looking for the possible presence of water from water under the lunar surface.
The landing is scheduled for Thursday at 12:32 pm et.
If you succeed, that would make Athena the second vehicle that lands on the moon in five days. A separate robotic landing built by Firefly Aerospace, which is also based on Texas, landed there on Sunday, inside a wide 350 mile width basin on the nearby side of the moon (the side that always faces the earth).
Both missions are part of the NASA Commercial Lunar Load Services Program, which the agency established to support the development of Lunas Landers by private sector companies. More than a dozen American companies participate in the initiative, which is a key part of NASA’s broader objective to return astronauts to the moon.
NASA eventually plans to hire at least some of the companies to deliver scientific experiments, technology and another load to the moon.
Athena’s landing will be Luna’s second launch for intuitive machines. The company made history in February 2024 by becoming the first to land a commercially built spacecraft on the moon. Last year’s feat was also the first time that an American spacecraft had landed on the moon in more than 50 years, from the Apollo 17 mission in 1972.
That terrifying, called Odysseus, ended up turning side by landing, although the flight was still seen as a success.
Both intuitive machines have addressed to the Polar area of the South of the Moon. Odysseus landed near a crater called Malapert A, near the South Lunar Pole, and Athena will point to a plateau on a giant and flat face called Mons Mouton.
Scientists think that water ice can be relatively abundant in the South Lunar Pole. Water is considered a critical resource for future missions manned to the Moon, particularly for possible long -term stays there.
Athena has several rovers with him to the moon, including a vehicle for the size of a suitcase built by the Colorado Lunar Outpost company, named Mapp (abbreviation for a mobile autonomous prospecting platform). The rover is designed to travel the landing site and capture 3D images of the land.
In addition, it is expected that a rover of the size of a thumb known as “Astroant”, developed by researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is ring on the roof of the MAPP Rover to evaluate the health of the vehicle and take periodic temperature readings.
In addition, the mission controllers plan to launch a drone, called Grace, to make a series of hops on Athena’s landing site. The robot is expected to cover about 650 feet in four hops and could explore a nearby crater to scan traces of hydrogen and ice deposits, according to intuitive machines.
While Athena is on the lunar surface, the plan also requires that you try a 4G communications system developed by Nokia. Company officials have said that such a network could be used to transmit communications, telemetry or other data between different spacecraft on the Moon.
Moonmania will not end after this week: this summer, a modern and small rover developed by a Japanese company called Ispace will try to land on the moon, near the center of a vast basin near the north pole of the moon called Mare Frigoris.
