
Another spacecraft is set to land on the moon tomorrow — here's how you can catch the event.
Intuitive Machines’ IM-2 lunar lander, named Athena, entered lunar orbit on Monday, March 3.
It's an exciting week for lunar activities: this past weekend saw the successful landing of the Firefly Aerospace Blue Ghost mission, and another lunar landing is set to occur soon. Intuitive Machines plans to land its Nova-C lander tomorrow, March 6, and NASA will be livestreaming the event for viewers to watch from home.
**Intuitive Machines-2 Lunar Landing (Official NASA Broadcast)**
### What to anticipate from the landing
This represents Intuitive Machines’ second lunar landing following last year's Odysseus mission. While that spacecraft successfully achieved a soft landing on the moon, it unfortunately tipped over during descent and ended up on its side, which hindered its ability to harness solar power. This time, the company aims for a flawless landing with its new lander, Athena.
The mission was launched on February 27 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Since then, it has been traveling towards the moon and reached lunar orbit on Monday. The spacecraft will perform 39 orbits around the moon before descending to a landing site located at Mons Mouton near the moon's south pole.
The spacecraft is carrying various payloads, including NASA technology like an ice mining experiment designed to trial drills and chemical analyzers that may be utilized in future crewed moon missions. It features a drill and a mass spectrometer aimed at detecting volatile compounds such as water, assisting in resource mapping on the moon.
The Athena lander will join the Blue Ghost lander on the moon as part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, which provides funding and assistance for private companies developing lunar technology. The goal is for NASA to collaborate with these companies to transport technology and supplies to the moon, facilitating human exploration.
“Through the Artemis campaign, commercial robotic deliveries will test technologies, conduct scientific experiments, and showcase capabilities on and around the Moon to assist NASA's exploration ahead of Artemis Generation astronaut missions to the lunar surface, and eventually crewed missions to Mars,” NASA stated in a mission update.
### How to view the landing
Live coverage of the landing will start at 11:30 a.m. ET (8:30 a.m. PT) on Thursday, March 6, with the landing attempt expected at 12:32 p.m. ET (9:32 a.m. PT). You can watch by using the video embedded near the top of this page or by visiting NASA's YouTube page for the event.
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Georgina has been a space writer at Digital Trends for six years, focusing on human space exploration and planetary sciences.
### Witness the Earth rising and setting behind the moon in new Blue Ghost footage
The Firefly Aerospace Blue Ghost mission is gearing up for its landmark lunar landing attempt this week, and as it orbits the moon, the spacecraft continues to capture stunning footage of Earth and our satellite. A new video from the mission showcases the Earth rising and setting behind the moon shortly after the spacecraft executed its second lunar orbit maneuver.
### Say hello to the moon in breathtaking footage as Blue Ghost enters lunar orbit
Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost mission to the moon continues to deliver remarkable content, with the spacecraft recently sharing beautiful images of Earth from space and now capturing incredible footage of the moon from orbit. Launched last month, the spacecraft aims to achieve the second-ever soft landing on the moon by a commercial entity. After spending several weeks orbiting Earth before heading towards the moon, it successfully reached lunar orbit yesterday, February 13.
### How to view this week’s spacewalk from the International Space Station
This week promises another thrilling event at the International Space Station (ISS) as two NASA astronauts prepare for a six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk on Thursday, January 30. This will mark the second U.S. spacewalk of the year, and preparations are in full swing to ensure the astronauts, their spacesuits, and the station are ready for the undertaking.
NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will conduct the spacewalk; they gained international attention after traveling to the space station aboard a Boeing Starliner spacecraft on what was intended to be a one-week mission. However, after over six months in space, they are now part of the regular ISS crew, as issues with the Starliner caused it to return to Earth without them.





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Another spacecraft is set to land on the moon tomorrow — here's how you can catch the event.
It’s an exciting week for the moon: this past weekend featured the , and there's another lunar landing set to occur very soon as well. Intuitive Machines is scheduled to land its Nova-C lander tomorrow, March 6, and NASA will be streaming the event live so you can watch from home. Here’s what to anticipate from the […]