Private Moon Lander Declared Dead After Landing Sideways in Crater

Intuitive Machines’ first mission ended with its lander Odysseus also landing on its side after one of the lander’s legs collapsed. 

This photo provided by NASA shows the Intuitive Machines' Athena lander approaching the surface of the moon on March 6, 2025. NASA via AP

Once again, Intuitive Machines landed sideways on the lunar surface, and this time, it was found resting on a side that prevented the solar panels from being able to keep the spacecraft alive.

“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 company announced in a press release. ”The mission has concluded, and teams are continuing to assess the data collected throughout the mission.”

The Texas-based company, working in partnership with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program confirmed on March 7 that its Nova-C lander named Athena was lying on its side in a crater near the lunar south pole more than 1,300 feet away from its intended landing site.

Mission leaders said that Athena’s exact location and orientation were still unconfirmed after its landing on March 6, and they were awaiting images to provide full confirmation. Later, an image taken by Athena shared in a March 7 press release confirmed her sideways position.

Ground crews were able to remain in contact with the lander throughout its landing in the Mons Mouton region and post-landing hours and execute some of the mission milestones, making the southernmost lunar landing and execution of surface operations in the history of space exploration.

From its position, Intuitive Machines was able to collect 250 megabytes of data for NASA, accelerating NASA’s Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment suite, and successfully demonstrating the agency’s onboard drill and mass spectrometer, but NASA said its instruments detected elements in the lunar soil likely due to gases emitted from Athena’s propulsion system.

The IM-2 mission was supposed to run for approximately 10 days from the lunar surface utilizing not only the drill and spectrometer, but also releasing a small rover, and operating the first rocket-powered drone destined to explore a permanently shaded area of a nearby crater. All three vehicles were set to communicate with each other by utilizing the first-ever 4G LTE cellular network built by Nokia and Bell Labs.

Athena was also topped with a retroreflector array, which was set to serve as a permanent reference point on the moon’s surface for future spacecraft.

“While this mission didn’t achieve all of its objectives for NASA, the work that went into the payload development is already informing other agency and commercial efforts,” said Clayton Turner, associate administrator for space technology at NASA Headquarters, in a press release. “As we continue developing new technologies to support exploration of the Moon and Mars, testing technologies in-situ is crucial to informing future missions. The CLPS initiative remains an instrumental method for achieving this.”

NASA and Intuitive Machines officials hold fast to the successes of the shortened CLPS mission, highlighting the difficulty of trying to land on the lunar south pole.

“Our targeted landing site near the lunar South Pole is one of the most scientifically interesting, and geographically challenging locations, on the Moon,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator for science at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Each success and setback are opportunities to learn and grow, and we will use this lesson to propel our efforts to advance science, exploration, and commercial development as we get ready for human exploration of Mars.”

Athena’s mission comes a little more than a year after Intuitive Machines’s first mission ended with its lander Odysseus also landing on its side after one of the lander’s legs collapsed.

Intuitive Machines is contracted to fly two more CLPS missions for NASA, with its IM-3 mission slated for 2026, and IM-4 mission in 2027.

NASA has dedicated $2.6 billion in CLPS contracts through 2028, with $62.5 million awarded to Intuitive Machines to “send NASA science investigations and technology demonstrations to the Moon using its American-designed and -manufactured lunar lander,” according to a press release.

NASA officials spoke out in support of the CLPS program in lead-up coverage to Athena’s landing on March 6, accepting the potential failures that could come with offering new companies the opportunity to literally shoot for the moon.

“If we’re flying missions at one-tenth of the cost of a NASA mission, and we fail two of them, we still get eight missions for that same price, even with one or two or three failures, this is still a very economical proposition,” Chris Culbert, CLPS Project Office Manager said in NASA’s pre-launch coverage. “It’s a risk posture which is more risk-tolerant than NASA is accustomed to.

“There’s not a single one of these companies that’s willing to bet their mission on a coin toss. Every one of them is doing what they can in order to have the most successful mission possible.”