Just a few days after the soft landing of Firefly’s Blue Ghost and a year after the landing of its predecessor Odysseus, the lunar lander Athena, a Nova-C by Intuitive Machines, landed on the Moon’s surface at Mons Mouton but with an off-nominal maneuver.
Advertisement
A nominal descent phase with an off-nominal landing
The descent maneuver started on March 6, 2025, at 10:33 UTC with the Descent Orbit Insertion (DOI), beginning when the spacecraft was above the far side of the Moon. The main engine fired to decrease the orbital velocity and start approaching the surface.
Athena coasted for almost one hour after the end of the DOI. Then it began the Powered Descent Initiation (PDI) phase, using the main engine to brake until 2 Km from the landing site and aiming to pitch over to get upright above the Intended Landing Site (ILS).
At this point of the flight, Athena was navigating autonomously toward the ILS. When something didn’t work as expected, the navigation system was expected to point its Hazard Relative Navigation (HRN) sensors to the area below.
The HRN should have identified a Designated Landing Site (DLS) to begin the Vertical Descent, and the Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) should have provided the necessary data for the Terminal Descent and Landing phase, ending with a soft touchdown.
However, the lander didn’t follow the planned trajectory and touched the lunar surface with an unknown and off-nominal attitude. The lander can communicate with the IM ground station and generate a certain amount of solar power. However, its exact position is unknown, neither its inclination nor power generation level.
Intuitive Machines and NASA are analyzing the lander’s data to understand what happened in detail and maximize the mission’s scientific results from the payload even with the current lander’s position and condition.
During the press conference with NASA, Tim Crain, Intuitive Machines’ chief technology officer, stated: “We have a number of cameras to choose from to help us visualize the horizon. […] With that information, we’ll be able to confirm orientation“.
Advertisement
More lunar landers in 2025 and beyond, Intuitives Machines will try again
One more lander is on its way to attempt a soft landing on the Moon: ispace’s Hakuto-R Resilience. Launched in rideshare with Athena, the Japanese spacecraft leverages the learnings of the first partially successful mission to reach the surface without crashing into it. Its arrival is planned for no earlier than June 6, 2025.
Hakuto-R should be followed by BlueMoon Mark-1 Pathfinder, Blue Origin’s first lunar vehicle in its demonstration mission. The lander will benefit from the 7-meter fairing of the New Glenn with a launch in Spring 2025.
After the failure of the Peregrin Mission 1, Astrobotic will try again to land on the Moon with its Griffin Mission 1, which is planned to launch in November 2025 on top of a SpaceX Falcon Heavy.
An additional five Moon landers will join the fleet in 2026. Firefly will launch Blue Ghost M2, Astrobotic the Griffin Mission 2, while Draper will try to land on the far side of the Moon with APEX 1.0 Lunar Lander. SpaceX will test the first landing of Starship HLS, and China will move on with Chang’e 7, an all-in-one mission consisting of a relay satellite, an orbiter, a lander, a rover, and a small flying probe.
Before proceeding with the IM-3 mission, Intuitive Machines will work to implement all the required improvements to the next Nova-C to achieve a nominal soft landing. This activity could change the current schedule, delaying the launch to no earlier than 2026.
Advertisement
