Intuitive Machines finally identified exactly where the IM-2 lander set down on the Moon yesterday. Although it is only 250 meters from its intended landing site, Athena is in a crater where sunlight could not reach the solar cells to recharge the batteries and the mission is over in less than a day. Separately, Firefly’s Blue Ghost Mission-1, which landed on Sunday, is working well. Both are part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services, or CLPS, initiative.
Athena landed on the Moon about 12:30 pm ET yesterday eight days after launch, but something went awry and initially the company wasn’t quite sure where it was or what orientation it was in.
Loaded with 10 payloads from NASA and other customers, Athena was supposed to operate for 10 days deploying two small rovers and a hopper, testing a Nokia lunar communications system, using a NASA drill to penetrate the surface and collect samples for analysis by an onboard mass spectrometer, and several other experiments in a previously unexplored region of the Moon just 5 degrees from the South Pole.
The lander did operate after reaching the surface and sent back imagery IM used to determine its location. Athena is in a crater 250 meters (820 feet) from its intended landing spot and on its side.
Source: Intuitive Machines
IM put a positive spin on the outcome, heralding that it achieved “the southernmost lunar landing” and operated some of the payloads including NASA’s PRIME-1 “suite.” With Athena on its side, however, it’s not clear what they could have accomplished with PRIME-1, a combination of a drill, TRIDENT, and a mass spectrometer, MSOLO. Vertically attached to the 4.3 meter (14 foot) tall lander, TRIDENT was intended to penetrate one meter (three feet) into the lunar surface and bring up samples to be analyzed by MSOLO.
Credit: NASA
Athena did land on Mons Mouton, a high plain near the South Pole. Data from previous missions have indicated water may exist in permanently shadowed regions there, perhaps deposited by comet impacts over the eons. NASA plans to send astronauts to the South Pole as part of the Artemis program to explore for water and determine if it can be extracted and used to support human operations. Athena was a step in that direction.
IM is still investigating what went wrong with the landing. The mission appeared to be going perfectly until yesterday when they began getting “noisy” readings from one of the laser altimeters that tell the spacecraft its position relative to the surface. A malfunctioning laser altimeter on the first IM mission last year contributed to that spacecraft also landing on its side after one of the four legs broke. That lander, Odysseus, was able to operate briefly but, like Athena, its main solar arrays were pointing away from the Sun and the batteries soon ran out.
Both missions are considered successes by IM and NASA even though they didn’t work out as planned. At a post-landing press conference yesterday, Nicky Fox, head of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, and Clayton Turner, head of the Space Technology Mission Directorate, congratulated IM and cheered the data they obtained from IM-2 enroute to the Moon and anticipated getting from the surface despite the off-nominal landing. Fox reminded everyone that NASA understands CLPS is a high-risk/high-reward approach to lunar exploration with broad objectives.
“Our goal is to set American companies up to establish a lunar economy on the surface and that means that even if we don’t land perfectly, we always learn lessons that we can provide and use in the future.” Nicky Fox, NASA
Another IM customer, Lunar Outpost, was similarly upbeat, saying in a statement today that although the MAPP rover couldn’t be deployed, it collected data from the lunar surface and in transit to the Moon that “proved MAPP was ready to drive.” They have three more lunar rovers, including the first from Australia, planned for launch in the future.
Lunar Outpost’s MAPP lunar rover. Credit: Lunar Outpost
PRIME-1 and MAPP are two of 10 payloads on IM-2.
IM-2 is NASA’s fourth mission in the CLPS initiative. CLPS is a Public-Private Partnership where NASA purchases lunar delivery services from commercial companies instead of building spacecraft itself. The companies design, build and launch the spacecraft. NASA provides science and technology payloads and pays to have them put onto the lunar surface. In this case, NASA paid IM $62.5 million for services. Adding in what it spent on payloads, the total cost to the agency was $145 million.
NASA counts them all as successes even though three of the four didn’t turn out as planned. Astrobotic’s Peregrine never made it to the Moon in January 2024. IM-1 in February 2024 and IM-2 made it to the surface, but neither landed upright and their batteries were soon depleted because their solar panels weren’t pointing towards the Sun.
The fourth, Firefly’s Blue Ghost Mission-1, is the only one that landed successfully. Sunday’s landing appeared perfect and the lander is operating as planned.
Just over 4 days on the Moon’s surface and #BlueGhost is checking off several science milestones! 8 out of 10 @NASA payloads, including LPV, EDS, NGLR, RAC, RadPC, LuGRE, LISTER, and SCALPSS, have already met their mission objectives with more to come. Lunar PlanetVac for example… pic.twitter.com/i7pOg70qYi
— Firefly Aerospace (@Firefly_Space) March 6, 2025
Shortly after landing, #BlueGhost deployed four tethered Lunar Magnetotelluric Sounder (LMS) electrodes to the surface and a 8-foot mast above our top deck. Look closely in the video below! These instruments will allow @NASA and the @SwRI team to study the deep interior of the… pic.twitter.com/vceeC0y9ME
— Firefly Aerospace (@Firefly_Space) March 7, 2025
Last Updated: Mar 07, 2025 2:10 pm ET