Nasa’s Athena, a moon lander developed by Houston-based Intuitive Machines, is set to land near the lunar south pole on Thursday, 11:32 AM EST or 10 pm IST.
The landing marks a crucial step in Nasa’s Artemis program, which aims to send astronauts to the moon in the coming years.
The lander entered lunar orbit on Monday after an eight-day journey from Earth. On Thursday morning, it will perform a final engine burn while over the far side of the moon, slowing its descent to just 2.2 mph before touching down in the Mons Mouton region, about 100 miles from the south pole. Athena’s mission will last approximately 10 days, powered by solar energy.
The spacecraft carries advanced instruments to study lunar soil, search for water, and test a 4G/LTE cellular network provided by Nokia. The lander carries a small rover and a rocket-powered “Grace” hopper, which will attempt to leap into permanently shadowed craters to search for signs of ice.
Nasa has invested $62.5 million in Athena’s payload, which includes a powerful drill and mass spectrometer. Nokia’s 4G technology integration cost an additional $15 million. The lander will also capture images of a solar eclipse on March 14, when Earth briefly blocks sunlight from reaching the moon.
Athena follows the successful landing of Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander on March 2. The Blue Ghost mission, also funded by Nasa, carried ten scientific instruments to gather data for Artemis. A third commercial lander, Resilience, developed by Tokyo-based space, is expected to reach the moon in June.
