IM-2

NASA uses its CLPS program to partner with commercial providers to fly experiments to the Moon. A drilling mission was originally set to launch in December 2022, for which Intuitive Machines supplied its Nova-C as the lander. This was the company's second CLPS contract. Three CLPS launches preceded IM-2: • Astrobotic Technology's Peregrine in January 2024 failed shortly after launch and did not reach the Moon. • Intuitive Machines' IM-1 in February 2024 placed the Odysseus lander on the Moon, but the landing was rougher than expected, damaging one of the landing struts and causing the spacecraft to lean at a 30 degree angle; however, the company deemed the mission "successful" as the lander was able to generate scientific data for all payloads for an extended period of time. • Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost Mission 1 landed without problems on 2 March 2025. This IM-2 mission on 27 February 2025 was the fourth CLPS launch and was en route to the Moon when the Blue Ghost landing occurred. == Payloads ==

Nova-C lander A CLPS contract was awarded to IM in October 2020 to land a second Nova-C lander near the lunar south pole. NASA designated the landing site at a ridge near the Shackleton crater, where there could be ice below the surface. MAPP rover Athena also carried the Lunar Outpost Mobile Autonomous Prospecting Platform (MAPP) rover. PRIME-1 The primary payload, Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment-1 (PRIME-1) was designed to search for water ice on the Moon at a permanently shadowed location near Shackleton Crater. It included the TRIDENT ice drill to sample ice from below the lunar surface and the MSolo mass spectrometer to measure the amount of ice in the samples. In November 2023, a mission simulation was undertaken by engineers at the Kennedy Space Center. Instruments The mission was to measure the volatile content of subsurface samples on the Moon. The scientific equipment consisted primarily of two components mounted to the lander: • The Regolith and Ice Drill for Exploring New Terrain (TRIDENT): TRIDENT would have drilled up to three feet deep, extracting lunar regolith, or soil, up to the surface. The instrument could drill in multiple segments, pausing and retracting to deposit cuttings on the surface after each depth increment. • Mass Spectrometer observing lunar operations (MSolo): This modified-for-spaceflight, commercial-off-the-shelf mass spectrometer would have evaluated the drill cuttings for water and other chemical compounds. Soil samples from multiple depths would have been analyzed. A version of TRIDENT and MSolo may also be used on NASA's VIPER rover to search for water ice. PRIME-1 weighed . It was to investigate in situ resource utilization (ISRU). == Mission events ==

Prior to launch In May 2024, the company announced that IM-2 was entering the final assembly stage. Landing Three minutes before touchdown at 17:27UTC on 6 March, Athena entered terminal descent. A plume of lunar dust interfered with its navigation systems, obscuring laser and rangefinder readings while also disrupting radio signals. After a brief period of no communication, mission controllers confirmed that Athena had landed, detected lunar gravity, and was generating power. However, one of its two radio antennas had lost signal, and power generation was lower than expected. The Intuitive Machines team placed Athena in a power-saving "safe mode," but after 38 minutes of troubleshooting, they determined the lander was not receiving sufficient energy. With the solar arrays producing only about 100 watts of power – insufficient to operate both the spacecraft’s heaters and its high-gain antenna – mission operators opted to maximize data collection over a 13-hour period rather than run the heaters to extend operations, but with minimal ability to conduct scientific experiments. During this time, Athena transmitted imagery and data from the Moon’s south pole. The TRIDENT drill was extended but not operated, and private customers, including Nokia, retrieved useful data from their payloads. However the rovers and Micro-Nova were not able to be deployed. On 13 March, Intuitive Machines shared that, like on the IM-1 mission, the Athena's altimeter had failed during landing, leaving its onboard computer without an accurate altitude reading. As a result, the spacecraft struck a plateau, tipped over, and skidded across the lunar surface, rolling once or twice before settling inside a crater. The company's CEO compared it to a baseball player sliding into a base. The impact also kicked up regolith that coated the solar panels in dust, further degrading their performance. File:Moon Soft Landings.svg|Map of all moon landings made by crewed and uncrewed craft. IM-2 is the lime green dot, marked "28". Post-mission On 7 March 2025, at 16:54:21 UTC, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) imaged the Athena spacecraft landed within the center of a wide crater, about 23.5 hours after it touched down the lunar surface. The orbiter subsequently imaged the lander again at a much more oblique angle on 10 March. On 7 March 2025, Intuitive Machines announced that the mission was over after Athena landed on its side in the Mons Mouton region near the south pole of the Moon. The same day, NASA confirmed that lander operations ended at 1:15 a.m., less than 13 hours after landing. == See also ==