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Intuitive Machines' ( LUNR ) Athena lander to launch on SpaceX

rocket

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Company hopes for upright landing after last year's

botched

attempt

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Scientific instruments onboard will study moon's surface

material

By Joey Roulette

DENVER, Feb 26 (Reuters) - Intuitive Machines ( LUNR )

was set on Wednesday for the launch of its second moon lander,

aiming to make the latest private U.S. moonshot one year after

the space company's first lunar mission ended early with a

lopsided landing.

The six-legged lander, named Athena and roughly as tall as a

giraffe, is encapsulated atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at NASA's

Kennedy Space Center in Florida ahead of its launch scheduled

for 7:17 p.m. [0017 GMT Thursday], the start of a four-day

launch window if Wednesday's attempt gets scrubbed.

The lander is loaded with scientific instruments - mostly

customer payloads - including a "hopper" rover built by

Intuitive Machines ( LUNR ) that will deploy from the lander after

touchdown and hop around the lunar terrain as a mobility test.

"This mission is much more complex than our first mission,"

Trent Martin, Intuitive Machines' ( LUNR ) senior vice president of

spacecraft, said in an interview.

"The most critical piece," Martin said, is "making sure that

we land upright so that we can get on to the science and

technology demonstrations that we need to do on the surface of

the moon."

Early last year, the company's first lander, named Odysseus,

made it farther than any other private company without smashing

on the moon's surface, a feat celebrated by NASA. But its hard

touchdown - descending about six times faster than planned -

broke a lander leg and caused it to topple over, dooming many of

its onboard experiments.

With Athena, engineers made improvements to the lander's

laser altimeter that was partially to blame for the last

moonshot's hard landing.

The company seems confident this time around, but with

complex spacecraft and the moon's unforgiving environment,

success isn't guaranteed.

"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."

Other onboard payloads include a rover built by Japan's

Dymon Co. Ltd and technology from Nokia to test 4G

communications between spacecraft on the moon.

And a pair of NASA instruments, also onboard, will drill

three feet into the moon's surface to examine its composition

for trace amounts of ice or other resources that could

potentially be exploited for fuel in future moon missions.

That research could be crucial for future lunar astronaut

missions drawn up by NASA's Artemis program, the flagship U.S.

moon effort that counts Intuitive Machines' ( LUNR ) landers, and others

from companies such as Firefly Aerospace and Astrobotic, as

precursor expeditions ahead of more risky crewed missions.

If all goes as planned on Wednesday, Intuitive Machines' ( LUNR )

Athena lander would become the third spacecraft actively heading

for the moon's surface. Firefly's Blue Ghost lander is due for

its first landing attempt on Sunday, followed by a lander from

Japan's ispace that will make its touchdown attempt in the

coming months.

Athena's landing attempt is expected March 10, and its

mission on the surface would last ten days. NASA has other moon

missions in work and plans to use SpaceX's Starship to return

humans to the lunar surface by around 2027.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, an influential Trump administration

ally, as well as President Donald Trump himself have suggested

focusing on Mars and less on the moon, stirring anxiety and

uncertainty in a burgeoning industry that has placed heavy bets

on the moon.

Martin said Intuitive Machines ( LUNR ) was bracing for any potential

changes to the U.S. space program by Trump and suggested the

company could adapt to Mars missions if necessary.

"Obviously you have to play the game that is in front of

you," Martin said. "And as a company, we're not overlooking

those things."