The American Company Intuitive Machines sent a new robotic module, Athena, to land in the southern polar region of our natural satellite.
New landing mode, launched to the Moon. Photo: Archive
Intuitive Machines private company continues to write history in spatial exploration. After the success of his first mission, which carried out a landing on the Moon in 2024, the company launched its second module on Wednesday night, Athena, aboard a Falcon 9 rocket, built by Spacex, the company owned by billionaire Elon Musk. According to Agerpres, the event took place at Cape Canaveral, Florida, and was broadcast live.
The Athena module will travel for about a week through space before trying to land on Mons Mouton, an area in the Southern Polar Region. If everything goes according to the plan, the landing is provided for March 6, and the mission will take about 10 days.
The main purpose of the mission is to identify the useful resources for future monthly explorations. The module is equipped with a special drill, capable of drilling up to one meter deep, and with a mass spectrometer for the analysis of volatile substances.
Athena is not alone in this mission. In addition to it, it will also operate an innovative robot, Grace, which can explore the area within a radius of two kilometers and capture detailed images of the monthly surface. Also, two Rovere – MAPP and YAOKI – will contribute to crossing the selenium land and collecting essential data.
The mission is part of the NASA program “Commercial Lunar Payload Services” (CLPS), which aims to accelerate the exploration of the Moon through collaborations with private companies. This partnership model allows the American space agency to reduce costs and increase the frequency of selenium missions.
In 2024, Intuitive Machines became the first private company to make a crew per month, through the Odysseus mission. Although the vehicle overturned at landing, he transmitted valuable data to the Earth, demonstrating the potential of the private industry in space exploration.
