Athena’s Lunar Leap: A New Era in Moon Exploration

SPACE

By Aniket Chakraborty Feb 27, 2025 Arrow

Targeting Lunar South Pole: Athena will attempt to land near the Moon’s Mons Mouton region, close to the lunar south pole.

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Rovers and Hopper Deployment: The mission includes deploying rovers and the Micro Nova Hopper, Grace, to explore lunar craters and terrain.

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First Exploration of Dark Crater: Grace will explore a permanently shadowed crater, a first in lunar exploration.

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Observing Lunar Eclipse: Athena will witness a lunar eclipse from the Moon’s surface on March 14 if the landing succeeds.

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Improved Landing Technology: Intuitive Machines has upgraded Athena’s systems to avoid the tipping issue faced during its first mission.

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Complex Mission Design: The IM-2 mission is more complex than the first, focusing on science and technology demonstrations.

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Competing Lunar Missions: Athena’s launch coincides with other lunar missions by Firefly Aerospace and Japan’s ispace.

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NASA’s CLPS Program: Athena is part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative to reduce costs for lunar exploration.

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Future Lunar and Mars Missions: The mission supports NASA’s Artemis program and future crewed missions to the Moon and Mars.

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