Private company launches rocket with the aim of placing space module on the moon

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A private company launched a new lunar lander Wednesday with the goal of getting closer to the moon's south pole, this time with a drone that will head to a crater that never receives sunlight.

SpaceX launched Intuitive Machines' Athena module from NASA's Kennedy Space Center. The craft will take the short route to the moon — with a landing date scheduled for March 6 — in the hopes of not meeting the same fate as its predecessor, which flipped over upon touching down on the moon's surface.

Never before have so many spacecraft been heading to the lunar surface at the same time. Last month, companies from the United States and Japan shared a rocket and separately launched modules toward the Earth's satellite. Texas-based Firefly Aerospace is expected to be the first to arrive this weekend.

The two American lander are carrying tens of millions of dollars' worth of experiments for NASA as it prepares to send astronauts back to the moon.

“It’s an incredible moment. There’s so much energy,” NASA science mission chief Nicky Fox told The Associated Press.

This is not Intuitive Machines' first attempt to reach the lunar surface. Last year, the Texas company achieved the first American landing on the moon in more than 50 years. But an instrument that measures distance malfunctioned and the module landed on the surface with too much force, breaking a leg and falling to its side.

Intuitive Machines said it has solved that problem and dozens of others. A sideways landing, like last time, would prevent the drone and a pair of probes from moving. NASA's drill also needs a vertical landing to drill into the lunar surface and collect samples for analysis.

“We will certainly be better than last time. But you never know what could happen,” said Trent Martin, vice president of space systems.

It is an extraordinarily exclusive club. Only five countries have ever successfully landed on the moon: Russia, the United States, China, India and Japan. The moon is littered with the remains of several previous failures.

The 15-foot (4.7-meter) Athena is aiming to land 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the lunar south pole. Just 0.25 miles (400 meters) away is the crater that is the final destination for the drone, named Grace after the late computer programming pioneer Grace Hopper.

The drone will make three test hops of increasing height and distance across the lunar surface using hydrazine-fueled thrusters for flight and cameras and lasers for navigation.

If those excursions go well, it will jump into the crater, which is believed to be 20 meters (65 feet) deep. Scientific instruments from Hungary and Germany will take measurements at the bottom as they search for frozen water.

It will be the first close look inside one of the many shadowed craters that dot the moon's north and south poles. Scientists suspect these craters are filled with tons of ice. If so, future explorers could transform this ice into water to drink, air to breathe and even rocket fuel.

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This story was translated from English by an AP editor with the help of a generative artificial intelligence tool.