Private Spacecraft Touches Down on Moon, but Its Condition Remains Uncertain

The NOVA-C lander, named Athena, successfully touched down on the lunar surface on March 6; however, the NOVA Control flight control room in Houston, Texas, remained silent.

After executing a 600-second descent burn from orbit to accomplish the southern-most lunar landing ever attempted on a plateau known as Mons Mouton, tension loomed as only a partial radio signal was available, forcing flight controllers to piece together fragmented data.

The verbal confirmation of touchdown was communicated by mission control around 12:35 p.m., with NASA confirming on the social media platform X a few hours later that the craft had indeed landed at 12:30 p.m. ET.

Images, originally not scheduled to be taken for several hours, were quickly prioritized to help establish the vehicle’s orientation—ensuring it was properly upright on the lunar surface for its multi-faceted 10-day mission.

Confirmation of solar charging came through, and mission control managed to establish communication with the lander, which complied with commands to shut down non-essential systems to save power.

This challenging landing follows the prior attempt where Intuitive Machines’ first lander, Odysseus, suffered a leg failure during descent last year, ultimately landing on its side. Nonetheless, it managed to maintain communication with mission control and relay data while performing select mission tasks.

Nasa concluded its live coverage of the Athena landing about 21 minutes post the spacecraft’s ideal landing time, with a promise of updates if any became available, alongside a post-landing press conference scheduled for 4 p.m.

“All right, team, let’s keep tackling the issues,” said Tim Crain, flight director and Chief Technology Officer and co-founder of Intuitive Machines, to the flight directors approximately 10 minutes after the landing confirmation. “We are conserving power as effectively as we can to ensure the vehicle’s health. We are generating power, maintaining communication through our telemetry radio, and working to assess our exact position on the surface.”

This event marks the latest demonstration of Nasa’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program as it paves the way for the United States’ manned return to the moon and is the second successful lunar landing for the country within just a week.

Athena’s touchdown is now the second lunar landing attempt this month, following the success of Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost, which landed on the northeast side of the moon’s near side on March 2.

The CLPS program effectively privatizes lunar delivery services in preparation for sustainable human settlements on the moon and aims to establish a lunar economy. Each mission is autonomously managed by the respective commercial partner, with the Athena lander programmed for an autonomous landing.

Many companies involved in this initiative are relatively new and have not previously attempted a lunar landing; Nasa acknowledges that failures may occur as these opportunities are explored.

“If we can undertake missions at a fraction of Nasa’s costs, and two of them fail, we still have eight successful ones for that same expenditure—even considering one, two, or three failures, it remains a very cost-effective approach,” expressed Chris Culbert, CLPS Project Office Manager, during Nasa’s pre-launch coverage. “This reflects a risk posture that is more tolerant than what Nasa typically experiences.”

“All these companies are doing everything within their power to ensure their missions are as successful as possible, and no one is leaving those outcomes to chance.”

Nasa has allocated $2.6 billion in CLPS contracts extending to 2028, with $62.5 million awarded to Intuitive Machines to “transport Nasa’s science investigations and technology demonstrations to the moon using its American-designed and manufactured lunar lander,” according to a press release.

“I believe this administration advocates for America first, and I think we can achieve this by collaborating with industry and ensuring that we maintain our leading position in space, whether it’s in low Earth orbit, cislunar space, or on the lunar surface,” remarked acting Nasa director Janet Petro about the CLPS program during the agency’s pre-landing coverage. “I am confident we will continue to push boundaries and ensure we remain at the forefront of space exploration.”

Onboard Athena were a drill and spectrometer for collecting data from lunar soil samples, a lunar rover, and the first rocket-powered drone or “hopper” dispatched to the moon. The hopper, named Grace, is designed to perform multiple hop-like flights from Athena down into a crater, where it is expected to investigate areas that are permanently shaded.

The lander, rover, and hopper are set to interact with each other by utilizing the first-ever 4G LTE cellular network developed by Nokia and Bell Labs, with plans for a modified version for use during Artemis III, Nasa’s first attempt to land humans on the moon since Apollo 17.

Additionally, the lander is equipped with a retroreflector array intended to serve as an everlasting reference point on the moon’s surface for future spacecraft. Nasa has indicated that Mons Mouton is a potential landing site for Artemis III.