San Francisco Frontiers - US firm targets Moon landing with drill, rovers, hopping drone

After becoming the first private firm to land on the Moon last year, Intuitive Machines is aiming for its second lunar touchdown on Thursday, carrying cutting-edge payloads to support future human missions.

The Houston-based company is targeting no earlier than 12:32 pm ET (1732 GMT) at Mons Mouton, a plateau near the lunar south pole -- farther south than any robot has ventured.

NASA will livestream the landing an hour before touchdown as Athena, the 15.6-foot (4.8-meter) hexagonal lander -- about the height of a giraffe -- begins its descent.

"It kind of feels like this mission is straight out of one of our favorite sci-fi movies," said Nicky Fox, NASA's associate administrator for science.

Intuitive Machines' first landing in February 2024 was a landmark achievement but ended with its lander tipping onto its side, an outcome the company is determined to avoid this time.

The pressure is on after Texas rival Firefly Aerospace successfully landed its Blue Ghost lander on Sunday, becoming the second private company to reach the Moon.

Both missions are part of NASA's $2.6-billion Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, which partners with private industry to cut costs and support Artemis, the initiative to return astronauts to the Moon and eventually reach Mars.

- A hopper named Grace -

Athena is targeting highland terrain about 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the Moon's south pole, where it will deploy three rovers and a unique hopping drone named Grace, after late computer science pioneer Grace Hopper.

One of Grace's boldest objectives is a hop into a permanently shadowed crater, a place where sunlight has never shone -- a first for humanity.

While NASA's Ingenuity helicopter proved flight is possible on Mars, the Moon's lack of atmosphere makes traditional flying impossible, positioning hoppers like Grace as a key technology for future exploration.

MAPP, the largest of Athena's rovers and roughly the size of a beagle, will assist in testing a Nokia Bell Labs 4G cellular network linking the lander, itself, and Grace -- technology designed to one day integrate into astronaut spacesuits.

Yaoki, a more compact rover from Japanese company Dymon, is designed to survive drops in any orientation, making it highly adaptable.

Meanwhile, the tiny AstroAnt rover, equipped with magnetic wheels, will cling to MAPP and use its sensors to measure temperature variations on the larger robot.

Also aboard Athena is PRIME-1, a NASA instrument carrying a drill to search for ice and other chemicals beneath the lunar surface, paired with a spectrometer to analyze its findings.

- Sticking the landing -

Before any experiments can begin, Intuitive Machines must stick the landing -- a challenge made harder by the Moon's lack of atmosphere, which rules out parachutes and forces spacecraft to rely on precise thrusts and navigation over hazardous terrain.

Until Intuitive Machines' first mission, only national space agencies had achieved the feat, with NASA's last landing dating back to Apollo 17 in 1972.

The company's first lander, Odysseus, came in too fast, caught a foot on the surface and toppled over, cutting the mission short when its solar panels could not generate enough power.

This time, the company has made critical upgrades, including better cabling for the laser altimeter, which provides altitude and velocity readings to ensure a safe touchdown.

Athena launched last Wednesday aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, which also carried NASA's Lunar Trailblazer probe -- but not everything has gone smoothly. Ground controllers are struggling to re-establish contact with the small satellite, designed to map the Moon's water distribution.

These missions come at a delicate time for NASA, amid speculation that the agency may scale back or even cancel the crewed Moon missions in favor of prioritizing Mars -- a goal championed by President Donald Trump and his advisor Elon Musk.

D.Parker--SFF