For a few brief days in 2025, two U.S. lunar landers were en route to the moon's surface at the same time.
And for an even briefer time, both of them were operating simultaneously after landing in March 2025 on different parts of Earth's celestial neighbor. The dual missions – both carried out by separate Texas-based spaceflight companies on behalf of NASA – marked an extraordinary moment in lunar exploration.
Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost and Intuitive Machines' Athena launched weeks apart atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. But – due to the type of path the landers took – they touched down within days of one another.
Intuitive Machines had previously etched its name in the history books in February 2024 when its spacecraft named Odysseus became the first commercially built lunar lander to ever make it to the moon. The lunar mission also marked the United States' return to the moon for the first time in more than five decades since NASA's Apollo era came to an end.
Now, the space agency has its sights set on returning astronauts to the moon under its Artemis program – the next mission of which is due for liftoff as early as April. Though that mission, Artemis 2, is not a lunar landing, humans are now due to reach the moon as early as 2028 under Artemis 4.
