A personal area mission will launch to the moon this week, aiming for the southern-most level ever visited on the lunar floor. The Athena spacecraft, made by US-based Intuitive Machines, is because of launch onboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy House Heart in Cape Canaveral, Florida at 12:17am GMT on 27 February (7:17pm EST on 26 February). A number of different missions may also hitch a experience on the identical rocket, together with an asteroid-mining expedition.

Intuitive Machines turned the first personal firm to efficiently land on the moon final 12 months, when its Odysseus spacecraft touched down close to the moon’s south pole. Although the spacecraft’s devices remained operational, Odysseus made a clumsy touchdown and tipped over, limiting the quantity of information its devices may gather and slicing the mission brief.

The corporate hopes for a cleaner touchdown when Athena begins its descent in direction of the tip of March. Its deliberate touchdown web site is close to the moon’s tallest mountain, Mons Mouton, which is about 60 kilometres from the south pole, making Athena’s try essentially the most southerly strategy of the moon ever. If the craft lands efficiently, it’ll then function for a few weeks, equal to a single lunar day, earlier than the lunar night time begins and energy is misplaced.

Athena will carry greater than 10 devices and missions from each NASA and different personal corporations. That’s not all – the identical Falcon 9 that can launch Athena to the moon can also be carrying three unrelated spacecraft. These are an asteroid-prospecting spacecraft from area firm AstroForge, which, within the first mission of its form, will survey an area rock for potential mineable steel later this 12 months. Additionally alongside for the experience is NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer satellite tv for pc, which can map water on the moon and search for future touchdown spots. The third spacecraft, constructed by Epic Aerospace, is designed to assist different satellites transfer between orbits.

As soon as Athena makes its touchdown, a NASA instrument will drill as much as a metre into the lunar soil to take samples, which it’ll then look at for doable water deposits and different chemical substances. NASA hopes to study whether or not these are current in excessive sufficient portions for use by future astronauts as a part of the company’s deliberate crewed Artemis moon landings, that are scheduled to launch in 2027.

A number of small rovers might be additionally launched close to the touchdown web site, together with Japanese firm Dymon’s plant-pot-sized Yaoki rover, which, at 0.5 kg, is the lightest lunar rover ever. The heavier 10kg Cellular Autonomous Prospecting Platform (MAPP), constructed by area firm Lunar Outpost, will discover and create a 3D map of the touchdown web site, in addition to take a look at how a 4G cellphone community, constructed by Nokia, capabilities within the lunar surroundings. Sitting on high of MAPP might be a a lot smaller, ant-sized robotic constructed by researchers on the Massachusetts Institute of Know-how, which can take temperature readings of the larger rover because it drives.

Intuitive Machines may also deploy a suitcase-sized hopping robotic, known as Grace, which can carry out a collection of 4 hops, leaping as much as 100 metres into the air and travelling a distance of round 200 meters till it lands in a deep crater with completely shadowed areas. Scientists have seen proof that these areas, which don’t get hotter than -170°C (-274°F), include usable ice deposits, however one has by no means been immediately visited. Grace will scan the underside of this crater, which is round 20 metres down, for about 45 minutes, earlier than leaping out once more.