Intuitive Machines Lander Touches Down on Moon, But Lands Wonky

Commercial moon missions with NASA connections are all the rage right now. Firefly Aerospace stuck the lunar landing of its Blue Ghost mission on March 2. Intuitive Machines was hoping for a similar success with its IM-2 mission Thursday morning. The Athena lander made it to the surface of the moon, but not everything went smoothly.

By the time the landing livestream concluded, Intuitive Machines confirmed touchdown, but two big questions remained. Where did Athena land? What position is it in?

“We don’t think we’re in the correct attitude on the surface of the moon,” Intuitive Machines CEO Steve Altemus said in an afternoon press conference. Attitude refers to the orientation of the lander. It seems likely the vehicle is not properly upright. 

Athena made adjustments during landing to avoid hazards on the surface, which has led to uncertainty about its exact location. 

“I believe we’re in the vicinity of the intended landing site,” Altemus said. NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will attempt to capture a view of Athena from above to determine where it landed. 

There are some positive signs. Intuitive Machines is in touch with Athena and its cargo. The lander is generating solar power. Once the company and NASA sort out Athena’s position and power resources, they will make a science plan to get the most out of the mission. 

Athena is expected to send back images from the surface, which should help the team determine the lander’s orientation.

How to rewatch the IM-2 landing

Most of the landing process went well. Athena remained in contact with Intuitive Machines and even sent back images from the descent.  

NASA broadcast live landing coverage on its free NASA Plus streaming service starting about an hour before touchdown. NASA Plus is available through the website or the NASA app. The broadcast was also on YouTube if you want to rewatch.

What is IM-2?

Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C lunar lander, nicknamed Athena, carries a suite of science instruments and robots, including a hopping drone, multiple small rovers and a NASA drill designed to burrow 3 feet under the surface. The lander’s cargo includes both NASA and commercial payloads.

The mission is part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, an effort by the space agency to use private companies to send landers and rovers to the moon. NASA’s grander goals through its Artemis moon program are to return astronauts to the lunar surface and establish a long-term human presence there. IM-2 is in service of that vision.

“The lander is carrying NASA technology that will measure the potential presence of resources from lunar soil that could be extracted and used by future explorers to produce fuel or breathable oxygen,” the space agency said in an update on Tuesday. 

When was the IM-2 moon landing?

Athena’s travels began on Feb. 26 with a launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Florida. Intuitive Machines targeted the mission’s landing for 9:32 a.m. PT on Thursday. The landing site is near the moon’s south pole, a prime NASA target region for future human exploration.

The timing was partly dictated by the availability of sunlight on the moon’s surface. The Athena lander uses solar power. Intuitive Machines expects the lander to operate for about 10 days if everything goes well.

MIT’s To the Moon to Stay

There’s another way to engage with the mission. Comcast’s Xfinity service and MIT Media Lab have teamed up for real-time coverage. MIT is involved with the IM-2 mission’s Lunar Outpost Mobile Autonomous Prospecting Platform rover. MAPP is designed to navigate rugged terrain using sensors and visual cues.

MIT’s To the Moon to Stay program features educational resources and delivered a livestream of the landing along with other key events from the mission. MIT had been planning a later live feed involving the MAPP rover, but it’s unknown if the rover will be able to deploy.

Xfinity X1 customers can access the mission resources and livestreams by saying “to the moon” to their voice remotes.

Why IM-2 is important

Crewed space missions tend to attract a lot of attention. IM-2 may not have humans on board, but it’s worth following along for the fascinating science. Planetary scientist Phil Metzger, a research professor at the University of Central Florida, highlights the mission’s Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment 1. 

PRIME-1 aims to measure the ice in the moon’s soil, and that’s a big deal. 

“That ice contains a record of the history of the inner solar system and may help us understand how water and carbon were delivered to the Earth-Moon system billions of years ago, turning the Earth into a habitable planet,” Metzger tells . “This is crucial for understanding how many other planets might be capable of supporting life in the galaxy, so it helps answer the question, ‘Are we alone in the cosmos?'” You can’t get more profound than that.

NASA hopes PRIME-1 will help researchers understand water availability. Water is heavy and expensive to transport through space, so future human expeditions will want to use what’s already on the moon. 

It will take time to determine whether or not PRIME-1 will be able to carry out its objectives after Athena’s wonky landing.

Landing on the moon is hard

Many missions have tried and failed to land successfully on the moon. Russia’s Luna-25 mission crashed into the moon in 2023. Israel’s Beresheet mission and India’s Chandrayaan-2 Vikram lander both crashed in 2019. 

“Lunar landers are challenging, not just because the lunar environment is so harsh and exotic, but because we fly so few of them,” Metzger says, noting failures are a part of learning how to make moon landings reliable.

It’s much harder to touch down on the moon than on Earth. 

“The moon has a large enough gravity to make it challenging to land softly, but no atmosphere to help slow down a lander,” says Josh Colwell, associate dean of the College of Sciences at the University of Central Florida. “The surface is very rough at all spatial scales, so the tipping over of a lander is a real risk.” 

It’s not just about having good landing hardware. The software and systems on board must analyze the surface to help guide the lander to a safe spot.

Lunar landings are thrilling, in part because of the dangers the machines must navigate to ensure a safe touchdown.

You might be wondering what happened to the IM-1 mission. Intuitive Machines delivered its Odysseus lander to the moon in 2024, but not everything went right. The lander made it to the surface but ended up sideways, putting a damper on its science work. 

Athena’s unexpected landing position is reminiscent of what happened to IM-2, but the impact on the mission’s science objectives will take time to understand. There’s still hope that it will be able to accomplish some of its intended work.