Eight days after launch, a second commercially built moon lander, this one built by Houston-based Intuitive Machines, is poised for touchdown Thursday near the lunar south pole to evaluate the environment where NASA astronauts plan to land in the agency’s Artemis program.
Known as Athena, the IM-2 spacecraft was expected to drop out of orbit and touch down 100 miles from the moon’s south pole at 12:32 p.m. EST. The spacecraft is loaded with sophisticated instruments, a small rover, experimental cellular communications gear and a rocket-powered “hopper” that will bounce from site to site near the lander.
As it nears the target, the main engine will fire in a maneuver called powered descent initiation to begin reducing the spacecraft’s velocity by the necessary 4,000 mph. Once the braking maneuver is complete, Athena is programmed to flip upright into a vertical, tail-down orientation for the final phase of the descent.
Nearing the landing site, Athena will descend at about 7 mph and then, at an altitude of just over 30 feet, slow to a sedate 2.2 mph for the final drop to the surface in lunar highlands known as the Mons Mouton region, about 100 miles from the south pole.
