APOD: 2025 February 28 - Athena to the Moon

And here is part two of our Red Friday two-fer Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD for February 28, 2025.

Did you realize there are three separate landers on their way to the Moon right now? There are...and the most recent of these, Athena, was launched by SpaceX yesterday (February 27th).

All three vehicles are operated by private companies. Athena is operated by Intuitive Machines of Houston, Texas. The other two: Blue Ghost (Firefly Aerospace, Cedar Park, Texas) and Resilience (ispace-US, Englewood, Colorado) were also launched by SpaceX on January 15, 2025.

Blue Ghost and its 10 NASA payloads have been circling the moon for two weeks and are scheduled to land in the Mare Crisium ("Sea of Crises") this Sunday (March 2). Resilience isn't expected to reach lunar orbit until late May or early June. It will make its touchdown attempt shortly thereafter.