Intuitive Machines said on Thursday that its robotic Athena lander has landed on the moon's surface but details of the spacecraft's status and health remained unclear, a tense moment in the company's second such attempt.

IM-2 is part of a new wave of private lunar exploration. For example, Firefly Aerospace successfully put its Blue Ghost lander down in the Mare Crisium ("Sea of Crises") region of the moon's northern hemisphere just this past Sunday (March 2).

The commercially and privately constructed Athena spacecraft landed on the moon Thursday, the second such device to do so in a week.