The payloads on Intuitive Machines Athena lunar lander, including a hopper and a rover

Click for NASA’s original image.
Link here. Athena is scheduled for launch on February 26, 2025 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The article is mostly focused on describing the Gracie hopper, which will attempt to hop into the permanent shadows inside a nearby crater.
Though no announcement has ever been made, it appears the landing site for this lander has been changed. Previously it had been targeting a ridge adjacent to Shackleton Crater, at the south pole and shown on the map to the right. That location however required a launch in January. The delay to February seems to have shifted the landing site.
If all goes to plan, Athena will land on a plateau just 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the moon’s south pole. This region is thought to be rich in water ice, and IM-2 will prospect for the precious resource with the help of some ride-along robots, including a pioneering hopper nicknamed Gracie.
Though I cannot find any specific information on where this location is, I strongly suspect it is the site that Intuitive Machines’ lander, Nova-C (also dubbed Odysseus), attempted to reach last year.
The yellow boxes on the map indicate NASA’s candidate landing zones for its Artemis-3 manned mission.
Click for NASA’s original image.
Link here. Athena is scheduled for launch on February 26, 2025 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The article is mostly focused on describing the Gracie hopper, which will attempt to hop into the permanent shadows inside a nearby crater.
Though no announcement has ever been made, it appears the landing site for this lander has been changed. Previously it had been targeting a ridge adjacent to Shackleton Crater, at the south pole and shown on the map to the right. That location however required a launch in January. The delay to February seems to have shifted the landing site.
If all goes to plan, Athena will land on a plateau just 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the moon’s south pole. This region is thought to be rich in water ice, and IM-2 will prospect for the precious resource with the help of some ride-along robots, including a pioneering hopper nicknamed Gracie.
Though I cannot find any specific information on where this location is, I strongly suspect it is the site that Intuitive Machines’ lander, Nova-C (also dubbed Odysseus), attempted to reach last year.
The yellow boxes on the map indicate NASA’s candidate landing zones for its Artemis-3 manned mission.