CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A private company launched another lunar lander Wednesday, aiming to get closer to the moon’s south pole this time with a drone that will hop into a jet-black crater that never sees the sun.
Intuitive Machines’ lander, named Athena, caught a lift with SpaceX from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. It’s taking a fast track to the moon — with a landing on March 6 — while hoping to avoid the fate of its predecessor, which tipped over at touchdown.
Never before have so many spacecraft angled for the moon’s surface all at once. Last month, U.S. and Japanese companies shared a rocket and separately launched landers toward Earth’s sidekick. Texas-based Firefly Aerospace should get there first this weekend after a big head start.
The two U.S. landers are carrying tens of millions of dollars’ worth of experiments for NASA as it prepares to return astronauts to the moon.
“It’s an amazing time. There’s so much energy,” NASA’s science mission chief Nicky Fox told The Associated Press a few hours ahead of the launch.