2 lunar landings in a week for NASA's private moon fleet

The moon passes by Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost Mission 1 spaceship on Feb. 24, 2025, in this image taken from a video. The craft is expected to land on the moon on March 2, 2025. (Firefly Aerospace on X via Reuters) Intuitive Machines' Athena lander, atop a SpaceX rocket, lifts off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Feb. 26, 2025. Athena is expected to land on the moon on March 6, 2025.

More than 50 years passed between the last Apollo mission and the United States' return to the lunar surface, when the first private lander touched down last February 2024.