Eight days after the launch, the second commercially constructed Moonlander, built by an intuitive Houston-based machine, landed Thursday near the moon’s Antarctic and was caught up in a mission to assess the environment where NASA astronauts land on the agency’s Artemis program.
The IM-2 spacecraft known as Athena was expected to descend from orbit and land at 12:32pm, 100 miles from the moon’s Antarctica.
The intuitive machinery said it was in communication with the spacecraft, confirming that the lunar lander was on the surface of the moon.
“We look like we’re down,” said Tim Crane, the intuitive machine.
The company is trying to check the orientation of the lander on the moon. It is unknown if Lander stood upright.
The spacecraft is equipped with sophisticated instruments, small rovers, experimental cellular communications gear, and a rocket-powered “hopper” that bounces back to the site from a site near the Lander.
An intuitive machine
The solar-powered Athena is available for approximately 10 days to complete observations and measurements before the sun sets and darkness clears the landing site at the end of the moon.
Lander was braked to orbit on Monday, 5 days after release. While flying across the moon on Thursday morning, the Athena main engine is expected to be fired, starting the process of about 62 to just over six miles across the track.
On the coast up to highlands, Lander uses cameras and lasers from a terrain relative navigation system to constantly monitor altitude and speed, keeping the spacecraft on track towards the landing site.
As they approached the target, a main engine fired on maneuvering, known as the power descent, to begin reducing the spacecraft’s speed by the required 4,000 mph. Once the braking operation is complete, the athena is programmed to stand upright in the vertical tail-down direction of the final stage of the descent.
As they approached the landing point, Athena descended at 7am, then at an altitude of over 30 feet, slowing to another 2.2 mph with a final drop to the surface of the lunar highlands known as the Mont Smouton region, about 100 miles from Antarctica.
An intuitive machine
NASA is targeting the Antarctic region where astronauts land. This is because data from anterograde satellites show that they never see sunlight and that ice can exist in permanently shadow craters, one of the coldest spots in the solar system.
Water molecules are likely delivered over billions of years, probably due to comet effects and interactions between lunar dust and electricly charged solar winds.
If everything goes well, Grace Hopper will jump into one of the dark craters about a quarter mile from Athena for in situ measurements and radio the observations to the lander using 4G/LTE cellular network equipment provided by Nokia.
An intuitive machine
Other equipment on the land takes measurements of soil temperature and composition, as well as searching for chemical traces of water and other compounds. It is equipped with two small rovers, exploring landing sites and testing innovative mobility systems.
And with timing and location coincidence, Lander’s camera shoots a solar eclipse on March 14th, when the Earth temporarily passes in front of the sun and casts a shadow on the moon.
The first lander of an intuitive machine named Odysseus, Last year we managed to do it on the moon, but while moving a little sideways, it hit the surface more vigorously than expected, tilting its side. The spacecraft was still functioning and could not carry out all planned observations.
The intuitive machine engineers were able to analyze telemetry and understand what went wrong. Athena is equipped with improved software and navigation tools to prevent the same issue from occurring the second time.
This year, the second moon surface will reach the moon
Athena’s arrival is the third and second to reach this month.
Austin-based landing aircraft Firefly Aerospace connected On the moon early on Sunday, March 2nd. Commercially developed Blue Ghost Lander is equipped with 10 NASA-sponsored instruments designed to collect the data needed for the Artemis program.
NASA has agreed to pay Firefly Aerospace $101 million to provide agency-sponsored scientific equipment and technology demonstrations to the moon. The instrument costs NASA an additional $44 million.
An intuitive machine
The Athena instrument and technology demonstrations were also funded by NASA. The agency paid the company $62.5 million to provide the moon’s surface with a powerful drill and mass spectrometer known as Prime-1.
NASA’s “Twisting Point” technology development program paid $15 million to Nokia’s Cellular Communications Integration, and another $41 million was sent to intuitive machines to help raise funds for the “Grace” hopper.
Another $89 million was paid for the lunar satellite built by Lockheed Martin, which was launched on the same Falcon 9 rocket as Athena. However, the moon’s pioneer satellite dropped out of contact with Earth shortly after launch, and has not been heard since.
Both Blue Ghost and Athena were funded primarily by NASA’s Commercial Month Payload Services (CLPS) program. The CLPS initiative aims to encourage private industries to begin payloads of agents to the moon to collect the necessary science and engineering data before Artemis Astronauts begins work on the surface this decade later.
As if Blue Ghost and Athena weren’t enough, a Japanese lander known as Resilience was launched at the summit in January The same Falcon 9 rocket that pushed the blue ghost into space. Built by Tokyo-based Ispac, the resilience takes a longer, lower energy route to the moon and will not arrive until early June.
I contributed to this report.
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