United States: A private US company, Intuitive Machines, has landed its Athena spacecraft near the Moon’s South Pole but fears the lander is not in an upright position. Despite the uneven landing, Athena is still communicating with Earth, the company’s CEO confirmed in a press conference.
The mission desires to deploy scientific instruments, including a hopping robot called Micro Nova Hopper, designed to analyse a nearby crater. It also carries a lunar mobile communications antenna—the first of its kind on the Moon.
Athena touched down at approximately 1730 GMT (1230 EST) in the lunar highlands region known as Mons Mouton, roughly 160 km from the South Pole. The company hopes NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will soon capture images to confine the exact position of the spacecraft.
Designed for a 10-day mission, Athena holds multiple scientific instruments. The Micro Nova Hopper, also known as “Grace,” is a robot designed to leap up to 100 metres high and travel as far as 2 km, allowing it to analyse a permanently shadowed crater that may contain water ice.
The spacecraft also carries NASA-developed technology, including the TRIDENT drill, which will extract subsurface material to catch potential ice deposits, and a mass spectrometer to analyse gases released from lunar material. In addition, the mission includes a 4G antenna developed in association with Nokia, which could lay the foundation for future lunar communications networks.
📸🧵3/4: For reference, Athena captured this image sequence over the Moon’s south pole region near her intended landing site, Mons Mouton—one of NASA’s designated human landing sites for the Artemis campaign. pic.twitter.com/mQx4gbjMw7
— Intuitive Machines (@Int_Machines) March 4, 2025
NASA sees the IM-2 mission as a key step toward human exploration of the Moon, with Artemis astronauts set to land in 2027. The search for lunar water ice is essential for sustaining future bases, as it could provide drinking water and be converted into oxygen. Professor Simeon Barber from the Open University said this mission brings scientists closer to assessing the viability of the lunar South Pole as a location for long-term human settlement.
Intuitive Machines previously landed the Odysseus spacecraft on the Moon in February 2024, though it also experienced a tipped-over landing. The company is one of several private firms collaborating with NASA to reduce the costs of lunar exploration. As global space agencies push toward permanent lunar settlements, this mission could provide practical insights into the presence of water in the inner solar system and its role in planetary evolution.
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