Lunar landing

Intuitive Machines' Nova-C lander Athena touched down at Mons Mouton near the lunar south pole on March 6, 2025 — the southernmost lunar landing ever — but settled on its side inside a small crater ~250 m from the target site after an altimeter failure. Power depleted within 13 hours. NASA's PRIME-1 drill could not operate, though 250 MB of data was returned. The company's second consecutive sideways landing.

Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lander touched down at Mare Crisium on March 2, 2025 — the first fully successful commercial soft landing on the Moon. All 10 NASA CLPS science payloads powered on and collected data over a 14-day surface mission (346 hours), transmitting 120 GB back to Earth. The mission concluded March 16 when batteries depleted at lunar sunset.