The Lander Athena Has One Primary Mission: Landing Upright on the Moon

The Moon is expecting company soon, and all eyes will be on their entrance. This week, the lunar lander Athena took off on a SpaceX Falcon rocket that deposited it on the road to the Moon’s neighborhood. Now, it’s up to Athena to turn on its engines and land on the satellite—upright, if possible.

IM-2. Made by Texas-based Intuitive Machines, Athena is officially known as IM-2. The 15-foot lander is aiming to carry out several important missions once it gets to the Moon. The most important one will be deploying NASA’s TRIDENT Drill and mass spectrometer to look beneath craters on the Moon’s surface.

Experts suspect that the craters contain ice, which would be vital for future missions involving humans. This ice could be converted into drinkable water, air, and even rocket fuel. In addition, Athena will also carry out an experiment from Nokia and NASA on whether a cellular network is viable on the Moon.

However, before Athena does any of this, it has to overcome the legacy of its predecessor, Odysseus (IM-1). While Odysseus made history as the first lander from a private company to land on the Moon since the Apollo astronauts, it faced a big problem: It tipped over.

The legacy of Odysseus. Last year, Odysseus made history, albeit in a bit of a lopsided way. After descending six times faster than expected, Odysseus broke a leg and toppled over. Although the lander’s mission was hailed as a success, its rough landing doomed many of the experiments onboard.

Fingers crossed. Intuitive Machines has explained that malfunctions in Odysseus’ altimeter were partly to blame for what happened last year. If the same thing were to happen again, it would most certainly hamper the experiments on Athena. NASA’s drill, for instance, needs the lander to be in an upright position to work.

"We definitely have fixed the laser altimeter this time, and that part will work," Martin said. "But you never know what that other thing is that's going to jump up and bite you."

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The Lander Athena Has One Primary Mission: Landing Upright on the Moon

The lunar lander is the second from Texas-based Intuitive Machines, which last year became the first private company to land on the Moon since the Apollo astronauts.

In that case, the lander, named “Odysseus,” tipped over when it landed on the Moon. The fall doomed many of its experiments before they even started.

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