[6][7] For the September 28, 2001 Athena launch, the OAM was built by General Dynamics Space Propulsion Systems of Redmond, WA.

[8] The OAM houses the attitude control system and avionics subsystem (guidance and navigation, batteries, telemetry transmitters, command and destruct receivers and antennas).

Athena solid rocket motor provider Alliant Techsystems (ATK) produces integrated upper stages using spin-stabilized or 3-axis stabilized Star solid motors that can provide higher velocities for GEO and escape (e.g. lunar and planetary) missions.

It was to add two, four or six Castor-4A strap-on boosters to the first stage of the stack, and would have been capable of launching 3.6 tons to low Earth orbit.

Sometime after 2005, PlanetSpace reused the Athena III designation for a 2.8-million-pound-thrust shuttle-derived space station resupply booster rocket, in a joint venture with Lockheed Martin and Alliant Techsystems (ATK).

At the time, Lockheed Martin declared that they would decide whether to proceed with Athena III "in the next few months" but no such announcement was made in the following years.

Expended hydraulic fluid burned in first stage aft section, damaging nozzle feedback cables causing loss of gimbal control and tumbling.