More often than not, private sector attempts to visit the moon so far have resulted in a failure to land. Intuitive Machines experienced its second moon setback in March 2025. Its lander, Athena was off target by about 800 feet, touched down in a crater, then tipped over. It snapped and sent some photographs and activated a few experiments before going silent about 24 hours later.
About a week earlier, Texas aerospace company Firefly Aerospace celebrated the first successful lunar landing when its spacecraft Blue Ghost touched down. A Japanese company’s lander shared a ride on the same rocket that took Blue Ghost to space, but it is taking a longer route to the moon and hasn’t arrived yet. So why is it so hard to land on the moon and historically, what have been the successes and failures?
