IM-2 (Athena)
IM-2 (Athena) — Intuitive Machines' second Nova-C lander, flown for NASA's CLPS program, which reached the Moon but did not survive the landing. On 6 March 2025 Athena touched down on the Mons Mouton plateau near the lunar south pole — the southernmost lunar landing ever attempted — but came to rest on its side inside a shadowed crater, roughly 250 m from its target. Tipped over, its solar panels could not face the Sun, and in the extreme cold at the crater floor the batteries could not recharge; Intuitive Machines ended the mission about thirteen hours later. Some data was returned from the PRIME-1 ice-prospecting payload before the power ran out, but the drill, the hopping mini-probe “Grace”, a rover and a 4G network test could not be used. It was the second Nova-C to topple after IM-1 in 2024 — the precise reason it came down on its side has not been formally pinned down.
Key facts
Mission & specifications
Mission
- Operator
- Intuitive Machines / NASA
- Launched
- February 27, 2025
- Status
- Lost
Trajectory
- Distance from the Sun
- 1.01 AU
- Distance from Earth
- 0.104 AU
- Distance from Venus
- 0.573 AU
Mission
Athena got closer to the Moon's south pole than any spacecraft before it, and still it was not enough. Officially IM-2, it was Intuitive Machines' second Nova-C lander, flying under NASA's strategy of buying rides for its instruments aboard commercial landers rather than building its own. The company's first lander, Odysseus, had made history in 2024 as the first U.S. soft landing since Apollo — but it had come down too fast, caught a foot, and tipped over. Athena carried fixes meant to prevent exactly that. On 6 March 2025 it descended toward Mons Mouton, a high plateau near the south pole, and touched the surface — the southernmost lunar landing ever attempted. But telemetry showed it had come to rest on its side again, this time inside a shadowed crater about 250 metres from the target. The geometry was cruel: lying over, its solar panels could not face the Sun, and at the frigid floor of a crater that never warms, the batteries could not recharge. Intuitive Machines declared the mission over roughly thirteen hours after landing. A little science survived. NASA's PRIME-1 package returned some data — enough to fire its mass spectrometer — but the ice drill it was meant to feed, a hopping mini-probe named Grace built to leap into a permanently shadowed crater, a small rover and a 4G network demonstration never got their chance. Why Athena toppled a second time has not been formally settled. It is an honest reminder of how unforgiving the last few metres of a lunar landing remain — and how much is still being learned, one attempt at a time.
- 2025Launch on a Falcon 9Launch
Intuitive Machines' second Nova-C lifts off from Kennedy Space Center, riding with Lunar Trailblazer, bound for the lunar south pole.
- 2025Landing at Mons Mouton — but on its sideMilestone
Reaches the surface — the southernmost lunar landing ever attempted — but comes to rest tipped over inside a shadowed crater.
- 2025Mission ends after ~13 hoursMission end
With its solar panels unable to face the Sun and the batteries frozen, Intuitive Machines declares the mission over.
Images
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