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Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Moon Lander conquered a breathtaking view of the moon on February 24, 2025 after his second moon circulation maneuver on February 24, 2025. | Credit: Firefly Aerospace
We live a big moment in space flight history.
With the start of the Athena room vehicles from intuitive machines on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket last night (February 27), three moonlanders are currently on the way to the moon. Such an increase in exploration has never taken place before – and all three vehicles are operated by private companies.
“Athena, who connects a historical wave of Mondlander on the way to the moon, is an extraordinary moment,” said Steve Altemus, CEO of intuitive machines, in a statement this morning (February 28).
“While the most important part of this mission is ahead of us, we believe that this is a signal that the moon services in addition to civil and commercial intentions quickly progress to take the moon to get into the solar system,” he added.
The IM-2-MOO-MOON from intuitive machines named Athena conquered this view of the earth shortly after the start on February 26, 2025. At the end of the frame, the second stage of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, which Athena has defeated. | Credit: intuitive machines
The other two private Lander-Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost and Resilience, which was built by the ISPACE based in Tokyo, started on the same SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on January 15.
Like Athena, Blue Ghost flies under the flag of the commercial Lunar Payoad Services program of NASA, which sets the agency’s science equipment on private robotlanders. The goal is to collect data that help to pave the way for the Artemis astronauts of NASA, which in the following years are to set up water in the Water region in the region in the region in the region in the region.
The Blue Ghost and its 10 NASA protection loads have been circulating the moon for two weeks and are said to end up in the mare crystal (“Sea of Crises”) near the moon near the early Sunday morning (March 2). Athena, who follows a small “hopper” named Grace and a rover from the Colorado Company Lunar Outpost together with his NASA Science equipment, will follow four days later at will. Athena is only five degrees wide from the south pole – closer than any other mission.
Resilience needs a much longer, more cumbersome way to the moon; The Japanese lander is not expected to reach the lunar orbit by the end of May or early June. Shortly afterwards it will take your touchdown attempt.
Resilience does not fly CLPs mission. However, the lander bears a tiny rover called Tenacious, which was built by the Luxembourg subsidiary of Ispace. Tenacious will collect dirt from moon of dirt for NASA, although there are currently no plans to bring this material back onto the earth.
Related: SpaceX Rocket starts private Moon Lander and Nasa ‘Trailblazer’ to search for moon water (video)
Related stories:
– SpaceX starts 2 private moonlanders to the moon (video, photos)
– NASA offers intuitive machines 117 million US dollars for the 2027 mission to the South Pole of Moon
– Privately Odysseus Moon Lander broke one leg during the historical touchdown (new photos)
So far, only one private spaceship has successfully landed on the moon – Odysseus of intuitive machines, which was done in February 2024. Others have come close; For example, ISPACE’s first lander reached the lunar orbit in March 2023, but crashed a month later during his touchdown attempt. (Resilience is the second moonland of the Japanese company.)
Athena started last night with several other spaceships, including Odin, a scouting probe built by the Asteroid Mining company Astroforge, and NASA’s water hunt.
The Lunar Trailblazer is also tied to the moon, although it goes more or more to the orbit than the surface. The Lunar Trailblazer goes an even more looping path than resilience; The 440-pfund-Stasa probe (200 kilograms) is expected to reach the nearest neighbor of the earth in early July.
