WASHINGTON — More than 50 years passed between the last Apollo mission and the United States’ return to the lunar surface, when the first private lander touched down last February 2024.

Now, starting Sunday, two more missions are set to follow within a single week, marking a bold push by NASA and its industry partners to make moon landings a routine part of space exploration.

First up is Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1, nicknamed “Ghost Riders in the Sky.”

After launching in January on a 45-day journey, it is targeting touchdown near Mons Latreille, a volcanic feature in Mare Crisium on the moon’s northeastern near side, at 3:34 a.m. U.S. Eastern time. Along the way, it captured stunning footage of the moon, coming as close as 100 kilometers above the surface.

The golden lander, about the size of a hippopotamus, carries 10 instruments, including one to analyze lunar soil, another to test radiation-tolerant computing and a GPS-based navigation system.

Designed to operate for a full lunar day (14 Earth days), Blue Ghost is expected to capture high-definition imagery of a total eclipse on March 14, when Earth blocks the Sun from the Moon’s horizon.

On March 16, it will record a lunar sunset, offering insights into how dust levitates above the surface under solar influence — creating the mysterious lunar horizon glow first documented by Apollo astronaut Eugene Cernan.

Hopping drone

Blue Ghost’s arrival will be followed on March 6 by Intuitive Machines’ IM-2 mission, featuring its lander, Athena.

Last year, Intuitive Machines made history as the first private company to achieve a soft landing on the moon, although the moment was tempered by a mishap.

Coming down too fast, one of the lander’s feet caught on the lunar surface, tipping it over and causing it to rest sideways — limiting its ability to generate solar power and cutting the mission short.

This time, the company says it has made key improvements to the hexagonal-shaped lander, which has a taller, slimmer profile than Blue Ghost and is around the height of an adult giraffe.

Athena launched Wednesday aboard a SpaceX rocket, taking a more direct route toward Mons Mouton — the southernmost lunar landing site ever attempted.

It carries an ambitious set of payloads, including a unique hopping drone designed to explore the moon’s underground passages carved by ancient lava flows, a drill capable of digging 3 feet beneath the surface in search of ice and three rovers.

The largest, about the size of a beagle, will connect to the lander and hopper using a Nokia cellular network in a first-of-its-kind demonstration.

But “Grace,” the hopping drone — named after computing pioneer Grace Hopper — could well steal the show if it succeeds in showing it can navigate the moon’s treacherous terrain in ways no rover can.

NASA’s private moon fleet

Landing on the moon presents unique challenges due to the absence of an atmosphere, making parachutes ineffective. Instead, spacecraft must rely on precisely controlled thruster burns to slow their descent while navigating hazardous terrain.

Until Intuitive Machines’ first successful mission, only five national space agencies had accomplished this feat: the Soviet Union, the United States, China, India and Japan, in that order.

Now, the United States is working to make private lunar missions routine through NASA’s $2.6 billion Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, a public-private initiative designed to deliver hardware to the surface at a fraction of traditional mission costs.

These missions come at a pivotal moment for NASA amid speculation that it may scale back or even cancel its Artemis lunar program in favor of prioritizing Mars exploration — a key goal of President Donald Trump and his close advisor, SpaceX founder Elon Musk.
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CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida — 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 black crater where the sun never shines. 

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. The company hopes to avoid the fate of Athena’s 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 the moon. The lander from the U.S. company, Firefly Aerospace of Texas, should get there first this weekend. 

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 science mission chief Nicky Fox told The Associated Press a few hours ahead of the launch. 

Last year, Texas-based Intuitive Machines made the first U.S. touchdown on the moon in more than 50 years. But an instrument that gauges distance did not work, and the lander came down too hard and broke a leg, tipping onto its side. 

Intuitive Machines said it has fixed that issue and dozens of others. A sideways landing like last time would prevent a drone and a pair of rovers from moving out. A NASA drill that’s aboard also needs an upright landing to be able to pierce the lunar surface and gather soil samples for analysis. 

“Certainly, we will be better this time than we were last time. But you never know what could happen,” said Trent Martin, senior vice president of space systems. 

It’s an extraordinarily elite club. Only five countries have pulled off a lunar landing over the decades: Russia, the U.S., China, India and Japan. The moon is littered with wreckage from many past failures. 

The 4.7-meter (15-foot) Athena will target a landing 160 kilometers (100 miles) from the lunar south pole. Just 400 meters (a quarter mile) away is a permanently shadowed crater — the ultimate destination for the drone named Grace. 

Named after the late computer programming pioneer Grace Hopper, the 1-meter (3-foot) drone will make three increasingly higher and longer test hops across the lunar surface using hydrazine-fueled thrusters for flight and cameras and lasers for navigation. 

If those excursions go well, it will hop into the nearby pitch-black crater, an estimated 20 meters (65 feet) deep. Science instruments from Hungary and Germany will take measurements at the bottom while hunting for frozen water. 

It will be the first up-close peek inside one of the many shadowed craters dotting both the north and south poles. Scientists suspect these craters are packed with tons of ice. If so, this ice could be transformed by future explorers into water to drink, air to breathe and even rocket fuel. 

NASA is paying $62 million to Intuitive Machines to get its drill and other experiments to the moon. The company, in turn, sold space on the lander to others. It also opened up the Falcon rocket to ride-sharing. 

Tagalongs included NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer satellite, which will fly separately to the moon over the next several months before entering lunar orbit to map the distribution of water below. Also catching a ride was a private spacecraft that will chase after an asteroid for a flyby, a precursor to asteroid mining.
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