by For the second time in less than a week, a privately built US spaceship will try to land on the moon.
The robot lander, called Athena, was developed by the intuitive machines in Texas. It was started in space on February 26 and traveled to the moon last week.
With approximately the size of a dishwasher, the six -legged craft aims to deliver at a location in the south polar region of the moon and then look for a week after the possible presence of water ice under the surface of the lunar.
The landing is planned for Thursday at 12:32 p.m.
If he was successful, Athena would land the second vehicle on the moon in five days. A separate robot lander, which was built by Firefly Aerospace and is also based in Texas, landed there on Sunday within a spacious, 350 miles wide pelvis on the nearby side of the moon (which always faces the earth).
Both missions are part of the Commercial Lunar Payoad Services program of NASA, which the agency has set up to support the development of Mondlander by private sector companies. More than a dozen US companies take part in the initiative to return an essential part of the wider goal of NASA to return astronauts to the moon.
Finally, NASA plans to hire at least some of the companies to deliver science experiments, technology and other freight to the moon.
The Athena landing will be the second lunar shot for intuitive machines. The company wrote history in February 2024 by the first to land a commercially built spaceship on the moon. Last year it was the first time that an American spaceship had ended up on the moon for more than 50 years – since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972.
The Athena Lunar Lander.
This country, which was called Odysseus, landed on the side after landing, although the flight was still considered a success.
Both intuitive machine missions have come to the south polar area of the moon. Odysseus landed near a crater called Malapert A, which near the moon-south pole, and Athena will strive for a plateau on a huge, flat mountain named Mons Mouton.
Scientists believe that water ice may be relatively abundant on the moon South Pole. Water is considered a critical resource for future occupation missions to the moon, especially for potential long -term stays there.
Athena wears several rovers with him to the moon, including a case vehicle built by the Colorado Lunar Outpost (short for mobile autonomous prospecting platform). The rover is designed in such a way that it runs around the landing site and records 3D images of the site.
In addition, it is expected that a rover in thumb size developed by researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is expected to roll around on the roof of the map rover in order to evaluate the health of the vehicle and take periodical temperature readings.
In addition, Mission Controller is planning to publish a drone called Grace, produce a number of hops around Athena’s landing site. The robot is expected to cover around 650 feet in four hops and, according to intuitive machines, could look for an intuitive crater for hydrogen and ice deposits.
While Athena is on the surface of the moon, the plan also demands that Nokia develop a 4G 4G communication system. Company officials said that such a network could be used to pass on communication, telemetry or other data between different space vehicles on the moon.
Moonmania will not end after this week: This summer a Lander and Tiny Rover developed by a Japanese company called ISPACE will try to land on the moon near the center of a huge pool near the north pole of the moon called Mare Frigoris.
This article was originally published on nbcnews.com
