A year after a failed first attempt, a private company created Athena, a private spacecraft, to attempt landing on the moon last week.
According to NBC News, on Feb. 26, Intuitive Machines (IM), a Texas-based company, developed and launched Athena and were waiting on confirmation if the landing of their second spacecraft was successful or not. The landing was scheduled for March 6 at 12:31 p.m.
Later the same day at 4 p.m., IM declared Athena dead. The spacecraft was said to be toppled over on its side after it attempted to land on the lunar surface. The trip was declared unsuccessful, and Athena was announced dead last Friday.
Athena is the company’s second spacecraft. In February 2024, IM became the first company to land a commercially built spacecraft, Odysseus, on the moon. That was their first attempt to land on the moon. Odysseus broke a leg and toppled over as it landed, making the trip unsuccessful.
Other than being two spacecrafts, Odysseus and Athena have something else in common. Their names are based on a poem written by Homer called “Odyssey,” where Athena is the goddess of wisdom and Odysseus is a “cunning and resourceful” hero. In the story, Odysseus wanders home for 10 years after the Trojan War. It’s clear that Athena is the only reason he survived his trip, which could be a reason IM chose their names. Since Odysseus failed the first mission, they sent Athena to hopefully “save” the fellow spacecraft, but it also failed.
Besides Athena, on Sunday, March 2, a separate spacecraft successfully landed on the moon. The spacecraft, Blue Ghost, was built and launched by Firefly Aerospace in Texas.