Moon exploration is undergoing a potentially transformative moment. Over the course of six weeks, three different lunar landers began a rocket-fueled space journey to learn more about Earth’s nearest neighbor. All three landers are operated by private, and relatively newly-formed companies. That’s a marked shift away from space exploration of the 20th century, which was dominated by state-backed, public institutions like NASA. If they complete their missions, these space upstarts could help pave the way for future planned human moon missions, and possibly, even a not-too distant lunar economy.
As of this writing, the three lunar landers are either currently in the moon’s orbit or hurtling their way toward it. The first two landers—one operated by Texas-based company Firefly Aerospace and another by a Japanese firm called ispace,—launched as a pair on January 15, hitching a ride on a SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket. The other, a spacecraft dubbed “Athena” by Intuitive Machines, blasted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday evening. The video clip below shows the moment Athena dislodged from the SpaceX rocket carrying it out of Earth’s atmosphere.
Intuitive Machines made history last year by becoming the first private company to successfully land one of its lunar landers on the moon’s surface. The word “success,” however, might be a bit generous. An issue during the landing caused the spacecraft to tip over and land on its side.
Here’s what each of these three privately funded landers could accomplish during their respective visits to the moon.
Intuitive Machines will look for water and test first lunar cellular network
Intuitive Machines’ 4.73-meter-tall (15.3 ft) tall Nova-C lander “Athena” is currently on path to the moon following a successful launch this week. The vehicle is expected to touchdown on March 6 on a plateau near the moon’s south pole. That is, of course, assuming all goes according to plan. Once landed, Athena will have a busy schedule. The lander’s primary objective will be to collect samples in an area scientists believe could be stocked with water ice. Athena comes equipped with a drill that it will use to tap down into the ground 10 centimeters at a time until it reaches its target depth of 3.3 feet. In total, the lander is expected to spend 10 days on the moon’s surface.
But Athena won’t be alone on its journey. Stored inside the lander is another smaller “Micro Nova Hopper” propulsive drone, named after U.S. computer scientist Grace Murray Hopper. The Hopper drone will propel itself up and away from Athena and ultimately land in a deep, rugged crater shrouded in darkness. Like the lander, the Hopper plans to search for signs of water ice. Athena will also deploy a small, four-wheeled rover developed by Lunar Outpost, which will test a first-of-its-kind lunar cellular network from Nokia. (The network is, for now, intended to relay images, videos, and commands between the rover, Hopper, and Athena). And if that weren’t enough, the Lunar Outpost rover will also deploy an even smaller, matchbox-sized robot called the AstroAnt to take temperature and other environmental measurements.
The entire project is like a Russian nesting doll of highly advanced aerospace tech.
Intuitive Machines did not immediately respond to Popular Science’s request for comment.
‘Blue Ghost’ lander is already shedding new light on the moon’s far side
Athena, despite launching more than a month later, is actually expected to land on the moon just a few days after Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander. That model, one of the two that launched in January, entered the moon’s orbit on February 12 and is gearing up for a March 2 touchdown on the eastern edge of the moon’s near east side. As part of the public-private partnership Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS), Blue Ghost will serve as the vehicle to transport 10 NASA science and tech instruments. Once landed, the lander will operate for roughly two weeks, collecting data about the lunar subsurface, which is made up of dust, loose rocks, and mineral fragments.
Blue Ghost has already made significant contributions even without landing. Earlier this week, Firefly Aerospace released a series of video and photos taken by the lander in orbit that shows a close up view of the moon’s farside. The images, taken around 74 miles above the lunar surface, are some of the best examples yet of an area of the moon not visible from Earth. In one of the videos (seen below), the faint silhouette of Earth can be seen in the distance.
Ispace seeks redemption with ‘Resilience’
The third lunar lander, launched at the same time as Blue Ghost, is operated by a Tokyo-based company called ispace. More than the other two companies on this list, ispace is looking for redemption. The company tried to send a lander to the moon in 2023 but a possible software issue caused it to malfunction and plummet three miles before crash landing on the moon’s surface. Their new lander, called “Resilience,” is on route to the moon and is expected to arrive sometime in May or early June. If Resilience can stick the landing, the plan is to deploy an 11-pound rover that will collect and analyze dirt samples. The lander will also carry various scientific instruments, including a water electrolyzer equipment and deep space radiation probe. Resilience will also send up a small model house designed by Swedish artist Mikael Genberg that’s expected to sit mounted on the rover while it works.
“I feel very confident about the [Resilience] lander, which has steadily achieved milestones and is on track for success,” ispace Founder and CEO Takeshi Hakamada said in a recent statement. “I look forward to watching the ongoing journey of [Resilience], navigating a low-energy orbit through deep space taking it as far as 1.1 million kilometers from Earth, before heading to the moon.”
Ready or not, privatization is taking over space exploration
The lunar lander achievements over the past month are the culmination of decades-long efforts to transition a greater chunk of space travel away from large, centralized government organizations and towards a more competitive private market. Household name rocket companies like SpaceX and Jeff Bezos-owned Blue Origin have been the most obvious beneficiaries of this pivot, but so have various startups and firms specializing in everything from shorter-range spaceplanes and satellites to luxury spacesuits. Partnerships with some of these privately funded firms has also allowed public organizations like NASA to send equipment up to space faster and at lower costs than if they were to manage every aspect of a mission.
But the shift toward privatization has some potential downsides as well. Critics warn that the profit motives inherent in these new companies could lead them to prioritize more immediate, money-making ventures like tourism or industrial mining over scientific exploration, which can be harder to quantify in financial terms. Other long-term projects with less clear returns on investment, like deep space probes, might also get short shrift. There are also concerns that for-profit business models seeking to maximize value as quickly as possible could end up prioritizing speed over the safety of equipment—or even future human crews.
Regardless, recent events could mark the first chapter in a new era of space commercialization. Some startups, like Interlune and Karman+, have plans to one day mine the lunar surface for valuable minerals and send autonomous mining drones to far-off asteroids. Multiple companies have already proven that a market—albeit a niche one—even exists for sending billionaires on brief space vacations. Others, like Blue Origin, have envisioned a future where astronauts live and work in space. It’s important to emphasize that all of these proposals are likely several decades away—if they happen at all. Still, any success in these areas will likely build on the foundation laid by the private lunar lander launches of the past month.
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