Moonbound medley: Record 3 lunar landers will be on way at same time
The latest, Athena from Houston-based Intuitive Machines, is targeting a 7:17 p.m. launch Wednesday aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from KSC's Launch Pad 39-A. It would join two commercial efforts already in transit, in a striking demonstration of the space industry's current vigor.
'There's no time in history that we've had three landers, lunar landers in space, traveling to the moon,' said Intuitive Machines CEO Stephen Altemus. 'We've ignited in the United States, the commercial sector, the innovation that's coming out. We have different types of landers, different types of propulsion experiments, engineering demonstrations, all kinds of things are happening here to advance our understanding of how to fly to the moon, how to land softly on the moon, how to work on the moon.'
The two other landers — Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost and Japanese company ispace's Hakuto-R lander Resilience — shared a ride to space from KSC in January, but both had slower trajectories. Still Blue Ghost could be the first arrival, as early as Sunday.
Both Intuitive Machines and Firefly have NASA-paid payloads while ispace is flying entirely on its own dime.
The space agency's 10-year Commercial Lunar Payload Services program has a budget of $2.6 billion through 2028, with 11 task orders spread out among five companies so far and a goal of two missions a year.
NASA seeds the companies with money, and those companies build their landers, arrange the launch provider and handle all communication during the mission.
Success is far from guaranteed, said Joel Kearns, deputy associate administrator for exploration at NASA's Science Mission Directorate.
'Landing on the moon is very challenging. It's much tougher than landing on Earth, where we have the advantage of air, and we can use wings and parachutes and things like that,' Kearns said during a Tuesday prelaunch press conference.
So far, only half of the craft sent to the moon have made successful landings. Failures include ispace's first mission in 2023 and a misfire on the launch of Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic Technology last year.
'Bluntly to get down to the surface of the moon, you have to ride a rocket all the way from orbit down to the particular place you want to land, at the particular elevation, and make sure you land and be able to set your cargo down safely,' Kearns said.
India and Japan have made successful touchdowns in the last two years, joining the United States, Russia and China as the five nations to make it to the moon without crashing.
NASA's goal for its payload program is to get out of the landing business and simply become a customer of U.S. commercial companies operating in a robust lunar economy. Intuitive Machines' IM-1 mission last year, while only partially successful, did mark the first time since 1972 the U.S. had managed a soft landing on the moon. The last success was Apollo 17.
Astrobotic was the first company to attempt a payload transport mission for NASA in January 2024, but it never made it to the moon after suffering propulsion issues after launch.
This year, Firefly became the third company to fly a payload mission. It hopes Blue Ghost will become the first commercial craft to stick a lunar landing without issues.
Intuitive Machines' Athena lander could touch down just days later because it's taking a more direct path to the moon. The ispace lander isn't slated to arrive until early May.
And 2025 may see additional moon missions.
Intuitive Machines has a third undertaking planned and Astrobotic plans to try again with a newer, larger lander than it flew the first time around.
Also potentially flying this year: a lander from Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, looking to pave the way for an eventual human landing that has been ordered up as part of NASA's Artemis program.
'It's an incredibly exciting time,' Kearns said. 'It really shows the interest internationally and from commercial organizations and from governments in moving out into the space frontier, and particularly the moon, as we get ready to move even further on the way to Mars.'
Intuitive Machines
Nova-C lander Athena on IM-2 mission, 2nd lunar landing mission for Houston-based company
Launch date: As early as Feb. 26
Landing date: As early as March 6
Destination: Mons Mouton on south pole.
Payloads: NASA's PRIME-1 drill and mass spectrometer and 6 other experiments plus commercial payloads for Lonestar Data Holdings, Columbia Sportswear, Nokia, Lunar Outpost, Puli Space, Dymon Co. Ltd., German Aerospace Center
NASA CLPS contract value: $62.5 million
Firefly Aerospace
Blue Ghost lander on Mission 1, debut moon mission for Cedar Park, Texas-based company
Launch date: Jan. 15, 2025 from KSC Launch Pad 39-A on SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket
Landing date: As early as March 2
Destination: Mare Crisium near Mons Latreille in northeast corner of moon facing Earth (as seen from northern hemisphere)
Payloads: 10 NASA CLPS experiments
NASA CLPS contract value: $101.5 million
ispace Japan
Hakuto-R lander Resilience, on Tokyo-based company's second attempt at moon landing
Launch date: Jan. 15, 2025 from KSC Launch Pad 39-A on SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket
Landing date: Early May
Destination: Mare Frigoris in far north of the moon (as seen from northern hemisphere)
Payloads: A small rover named Tenacious designed by ispace Europe based in Luxembourg and five other commercial science and commemorative payloads.
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