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 hoped for a similar success with its IM-2 mission Thursday morning. The Athena lander made it to the moon's surface, but ended up on its side.
By the time the landing livestream concluded on Thursday, Intuitive Machines had confirmed touchdown, but two big questions remained. Where did Athena land? What position is it in? On Friday, the company answered both.
"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 on Thursday. Attitude refers to the orientation of the lander.
"Images downlinked from Athena on the lunar surface confirmed that Athena was on her side," Intuitive Machines said in an update on Friday.
Athena made adjustments during the landing to avoid hazards on the surface, which led to uncertainty about its exact location. Intuitive Machines later determined it landed about 820 feet away from its intended target.
The sideways landing meant a premature end to the lander's anticipated science operations.
"With the direction of the sun, the orientation of the solar panels, and extreme cold temperatures in the crater, Intuitive Machines does not expect Athena to recharge," the team said. The mission is now concluded.
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 and from the surface.
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, carried a suite of scientific 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 included both NASA and commercial payloads, but the early mission end meant many of its science missions weren't carried out.
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 was in service of that vision.
When was the IM-2 moon landing?
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The IM-2 mission sent back some views of Earth after launch in February.
Intuitive MachinesAthena'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 was 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 used solar power. Intuitive Machines expected the lander to operate for about 10 days if it had landed in a stable orientation.
MIT's To the Moon to Stay
There was another way to engage with the mission. Comcast's Xfinity service and MIT Media Lab teamed up for real-time coverage. MIT is involved with the IM-2 mission's Lunar Outpost Mobile Autonomous Prospecting Platform rover. MAPP was 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. MIT had planned a later live feed involving the MAPP rover, but the rover won't have a chance to explore the moon.
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 had humans on board, but was worth following for the fascinating science. Planetary scientist Phil Metzger, a research professor at the University of Central Florida, highlighted the mission's Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment 1.
PRIME-1 aimed 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 told CNET. "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 had hoped PRIME-1 would 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. Intuitive Machines said it was able to "accelerate" NASA's PRIME-1 suite, but hasn't said what it was able to accomplish during the lander's short period of power.
Landing on the moon is hard
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Athena sent back a lunar selfie while in orbit around the moon.
Intuitive MachinesMany 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-1. Intuitive Machines highlighted a notable accomplishment from the shortened mission: "This was the southernmost lunar landing and surface operations ever achieved." Landing on the moon is hard. Landing on the moon's rugged south polar region is even harder.
Watch this: Watch Intuitive Machines-2 Lunar Landing and Moon Images from the Descent
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