A Whole Lot of Lunar Landings!

Back in February, a spacecraft called Athena blasted off on a journey to the Moon.

But it wasn’t the only one headed there!

Two other missions were already underway—each aiming to land an uncrewed spacecraft on the Moon’s surface.

This has made 2025 a busy year for lunar exploration!

Blue Ghost
Firefly Aerospace

The first to attempt a landing was Blue Ghost. It launched on January 15th and safely touched down on the Moon 45 days later.

regolith

Blue Ghost got straight to work, drilling into the ground to measure the Moon’s temperature, and analyzing samples of the lunar soil, called regolith.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

Then, after 14 days, its mission was complete, and Blue Ghost’s systems shut down—all according to plan!

Athena
Intuitive Machines

Athena was next to arrive—but its landing didn’t go so smoothly. it made it down to the Moon’s surface in one piece, but unfortunately toppled onto its side.

This meant Athena couldn’t use its solar panels to recharge its batteries, and so the mission ended after just one day.

On the plus side, there was just enough time to test some of Athena’s equipment — providing useful information for future missions.

Resilience
ispace

Last but not least, there’s Resilience. It launched in January, on the same rocket as Blue Ghost, but then took a longer, slower route to the Moon, and is due to attempt its landing soon.

Will it make it down to the surface successfully? We’ll have to wait and see!

Thanks for watching Twig Science Reporter. We’ll be back later in the summer with even more incredible science news!