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Athena lander aims for lunar south pole landing

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Intuitive Machines' ( LUNR ) previous attempt failed due to faulty

altimeter

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NASA's program supports private lunar spacecraft

development

By Joey Roulette

WASHINGTON, March 6 (Reuters) - Intuitive Machines ( LUNR )

sent final commands to its uncrewed Athena spacecraft

on Thursday as it closed in on a landing spot near the moon's

south pole, the company's second attempt to score a clean

touchdown after making a lopsided landing last year.

After launching atop a SpaceX rocket on Feb. 26 from

Florida, the six-legged Athena lander has flown a winding path

to the moon some 238,000 miles (383,000 km) away from Earth,

where it will attempt to land closer to the lunar south pole

than any other spacecraft.

The landing is scheduled for 12:32 pm ET (1732 GMT). It will

target Mons Mouton, a flat-topped mountain some 100 miles (160

km) from the lunar south pole.

Five nations have made successful soft landings in the past

- the then-Soviet Union, the U.S., China, India and, last year,

Japan. The U.S. and China are both rushing to put their

astronauts on the moon later this decade, each courting allies

and giving their private sectors a key role in spacecraft

development.

India's first uncrewed moon landing, Chandrayaan-3 in 2023,

touched down near the lunar south pole. The region is eyed by

major space powers for its potential for resource extraction

once humans return to the surface - subsurface water ice could

theoretically be converted into rocket fuel.

The Houston-based company's first moon landing attempt

almost exactly a year ago, using its Odysseus lander, marked the

most successful touchdown attempt at the time by a private

company.

But its hard touchdown - due to a faulty laser altimeter

used to judge its distance from the ground - broke a lander leg

and caused the craft to topple over, dooming many of its onboard

experiments.

Austin-based Firefly Aerospace this month celebrated a clean

touchdown of its Blue Ghost lander, making the most successful

soft landing by a private company to date.

Intuitive Machines ( LUNR ), Firefly, Astrobotic Technology and a

handful of other companies are building lunar spacecraft under

NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, an effort to

seed development of low-budget spacecraft that can scour the

moon's surface before the U.S. sends astronauts there around

2027.