When Intuitive Machines became the first private space company to land on the moon, it was hailed as successful, despite its spacecraft breaking a leg and falling to its side.
Now, as the Houston-based company seeks to repeat the journey, its executives say they’ve made improvements to their new spacecraft, Athena, that should help it avoid the problems that impacted the mission in 2024.
“Landing on the moon is extremely difficult,” Trent Martin, senior vice president of Intuitive Machines’ space systems, told reporters. “Certainly we will be better this time than we were last time, but you never know what could happen.”
The mission, referred to as IM-2 or PRIME-1, is set to launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, as early as Wednesday, Feb. 26. Neither NASA nor Intuitive Machines has announced a specific time for the liftoff, but the space agency intends to broadcast the event live with commentary. Another spacecraft, NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer, will also hitch a ride on the flight to orbit the moon and map locations of lunar water.
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