SpaceX launched its second lunar mission of 2025, just over a month after flying the Firefly Blue Ghost and HAKUTO-R M2 Resilience landers to the Moon atop a single Falcon 9. Another Falcon 9, this time with the Intuitive Machines IM-2 NOVA-C lander on board, launched successfully from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at the Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday, Feb. 26, at 7:16 PM EST (00:16 UTC Thursday, Feb. 27) during an instantaneous launch window.
The Falcon 9 booster, B1083-9, flew on an eastward trajectory out of the Cape. The booster conducted a safe landing on SpaceX’s autonomous droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas in the Atlantic while the second stage continued to its parking orbit. Alongside the IM-2 lander were three additional secondary payloads, also contracted to be flown by Intuitive Machines, on an ESPA ring below the NOVA-C lander.
Booster B1083 started its career with the Crew-8 mission. Since then, the booster has also flown the Polaris Dawn commercial crewed mission, the CRS-31 cargo mission to ISS, the Astranis: From One to Many mission, and four Starlink missions before the IM-2 flight.
As mentioned, the IM-2 lander was not the only spacecraft sent to the Moon on this mission. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) Lunar Trailblazer, a small lunar orbiter part of NASA’s Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration program, will map water on the lunar surface from orbit. Massing 200 kg and three meters wide, Lunar Trailblazer will take a slow, fuel-efficient trajectory to the Moon before inserting itself in a 100 km altitude science orbit.
Artist’s impression of Lunar Trailblazer in orbit around the Moon. (Credit: NASA/JPL)
The spacecraft will use a JPL-provided infrared spectrometer and a UK Space Agency-provided infrared multispectral imager to measure the presence of water and its forms on the Moon. The prime mission is scheduled to last two years.
While IM-2 and Lunar Trailblazer will explore the Moon in different ways, the Odin spacecraft, developed by AstroForge, will fly to a small near-Earth asteroid known as 2022 OB5. Odin, massing 100 kg, will arrive at the asteroid 11 months after launch if all goes as planned and will image the asteroid, which may be metallic, during its flyby. AstroForge aims to mine asteroids for platinum group metals on future missions.
In addition, Epic Aerospace flew its Chimera GEO 1 spacecraft. The GEO, massing approximately 300 kg, is an orbital transfer vehicle capable of high-energy orbital transfers and follows the Chimera LEO vehicle that flew on the Transporter-6 mission.
The Odin spacecraft seen during launch processing. (Credit: AstroForge)
The Chimera GEO can fly small spacecraft to translunar injection trajectories or to geosynchronous orbit; a 16U CubeSat is onboard for this mission.
Intuitive Machines IM-2 mission and payloads
The mission’s primary payload is a commercial lander built by Houston, Texas-based Intuitive Machines. The IM-2 lander, the NOVA-C Athena, follows the partially successful IM-1 mission that landed near the Malapert A crater in the lunar south polar region on Feb. 22, 2024. IM-2 is fulfilling a NASA Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) task order for a science and technology demonstration payload and fly other commercial payloads.
The IM-1 lander, a NOVA-C known as Odysseus, broke a leg on landing due to a high horizontal velocity and, therefore, was tilted approximately 30 degrees from vertical on the lunar surface. The mission was, however, considered a success and became the first U.S. spacecraft to perform a soft landing on the Moon since 1972. Odysseus lasted roughly one (Earth) week on the surface before losing power due to the approach of the lunar night.
The IM-1 Odysseus lander seen with a broken landing leg during its otherwise successful landing in 2024. (Credit: Intuitive Machines)
Like Odysseus, Athena will also land in the lunar south polar region. Athena is expected to land at Mons Mouton, named after mathematician Melba Mouton, one of the first “human computers” who worked on spacecraft trajectories for NASA. Craters in this region can be deep enough that parts of their floors are permanently in shadow, and this could have enabled water ice deposits from cometary impacts to exist below the surface in the shadowed areas.
NASA’s Lunar Prospector spacecraft found enhanced levels of hydrogen in the lunar north and south polar regions when it orbited the Moon in the late 1990s. Other missions since have not found definitive evidence of water ice deposits, though India’s Chandrayaan-1 mission dropped an impactor that detected water during its descent.
The Athena lander, over 4.5 m tall and 1.5 m wide, is carrying a 36 kg NASA experiment package known as Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment-1 (PRIME-1). PRIME-1 will use two experiments to determine if water ice exists in Athena‘s local environment and if it is practical to utilize such water ice as an in-situ resource.
To the moon, Alice! Well, actually to the moon, IM-2. The second Intuitive Machines lunar lander is safely inside the payload fairing atop Falcon 9 ready to launch tonight at 7:16pm EST.
Set a reminder to watch it live with me and @NASASpaceflight https://t.co/lqnIDiVzpP pic.twitter.com/Ua7SOcokj7
— Sawyer R. (@thenasaman) February 26, 2025
PRIME-1’s first instrument is a robotic drill known as The Regolith and Ice Drill for Exploring New Terrain (TRIDENT). The TRIDENT drill can extract lunar regolith from up to one meter below the surface and drill in multiple segments so that soil from any depth under one meter can be examined.
The second PRIME-1 instrument is the Mass Spectrometer for Observing Lunar Operations (MSOLO). MSOLO is a mass spectrometer that will analyze TRIDENT’s cuttings for water and other chemical compounds. A version of MSOLO was to be used aboard the canceled VIPER rover, which was also planned to search for water ice.
Athena also carries two small lunar rovers and a lunar hopper, all of which will move away from the lander and explore the surface. The Mobile Autonomous Prospecting Platform (MAPP), developed by Lunar Outpost, will test the Nokia Bell Labs Lunar Surface Communications System (LSCS), a 4G LTE-derived mobile network for communications on the lunar surface. MAPP is expected to be the first commercial rover to operate on another planetary body and the first rover in the lunar south polar region.
The MAPP rover seen during testing. (Credit: Lunar Outpost)
The MAPP rover contains three Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) payloads. The MIT payloads are a high-resolution camera, a miniature swarm robot known as AstroAnt, and a silicon wafer containing a collection of thoughts and reflections in native languages. AstroAnt is designed to inspect future lunar settlements while the camera will collect data for a virtual environment for astronaut training.
The LSCS, mounted on the Athena lander, was funded by NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate as a “Tipping Point” technology demonstration. Another Tipping Point demonstration on IM-2, a small “hopper” vehicle, is built by Intuitive Machines and introduces a new capability to conduct exploration away from the landing site. This demonstrator will also test the LSCS.
The Micro Nova “hopper,” named “GRACE” after computing pioneer Grace Hopper, will use small jets to hop between landing sites on the lunar surface. Its exploration will culminate in the first-ever landing into a small, permanently shadowed crater to measure temperatures and water ice presence. GRACE can move up to 25 km from Athena‘s landing location and carry up to a 10 kg payload.
For this mission, GRACE is carrying two instruments. Germany’s DLR provided the Lunar Radiometer instrument, which will measure surface temperatures and map temperature variations. Hungary’s Puli Space Technologies Ltd. provided the Puli Lunar Water Snooper to collect water ice data and radiation measurements.
A Japanese company, Dymon Co. Ltd., built a small rover to be deployed on the surface. The rover, known as YAOKI, is designed to capture images of the lunar surface while roving within 50 m of the Athena lander. YAOKI is Intuitive Machines’ first Japanese commercial payload and will be deployed five days after Athena‘s landing.
A closeup of the Micro Nova hopper attached to the larger Athena lander. (Credit: Intuitive Machines)
Other payloads aboard Athena include a laser retro-reflector array from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. Several lander missions to the lunar surface have been equipped with reflectors to help accurately measure the exact distance from the Moon to Earth and get an exact reading of a lander’s location on the Moon.
Athena is also carrying a payload known as Freedom, which was developed by Lonestar Data Holdings. The Freedom payload is a small data storage center that can provide global data backup, refresh, and restore services. The company aims to provide data center services from cislunar space and the lunar surface on future Moon missions.
IM-2 mission profile
The Athena lander, named after the Greek goddess of wisdom, is the second NOVA-C lander to fly. Like the IM-1 mission, Falcon 9’s countdown procedure was slightly modified to accommodate propellant loading for the lander, which is equipped with a main engine that uses methane as fuel and liquid oxygen as an oxidizer.
Athena, massing approximately 2,100 kg at launch, separated from Falcon 9’s second stage and autonomously activated its systems during its commissioning process. The secondary payloads all were deployed successfully and contact has also been established with the Lunar Trailblazer spacecraft.
When the autonomous commissioning and the maximum power spacecraft attitude were established, Athena began communicating with flight controllers on Earth after some tense moments and a switch to a Deep Space Network antenna.
The IM-2 mission profile from launch to lunar landing. (Credit: Intuitive Machines)
The lander will reach the Moon only a few days after launch, a stark contrast to the weeks and months taken by other landers, such as Blue Ghost and HAKUTO-R, that utilize low-energy fuel-saving trajectories. Intuitive Machines uses a network of ground stations in the United States, the British Isles, southern Africa, Australia, and east Asia to communicate with the lander from Nova Control in Houston.
Athena will initially be inserted into a low-lunar orbit at 100 km altitude before conducting its descent orbit insertion and powered descent initiation maneuvers approximately three days following lunar orbit insertion. The lander is equipped with a laser rangefinder and cameras to navigate autonomously, although the laser rangefinder did not work on IM-1 due to a safety enable switch that was not disabled.
The rangefinder’s inability to function during IM-1 was a key factor in the issues Odysseus encountered during its touchdown. For IM-2, this safety switch has been triple-checked to ensure it will allow the rangefinder to operate for landing.
IM-1 Odysseus orbiting the Moon prior to its landing. IM-2 will follow a similar flight profile. (Credit: Intuitive Machines)
During terminal descent, Athena will not use its cameras or lasers due to lunar dust kickup from the main engine. The lander will use inertial measurements and target a touchdown at a velocity of just one meter per second. A 15-second delay is expected before confirmation of a touchdown, which is currently set for Thursday, March 6.
Athena will image its landing site before using deployment mechanisms on the side of the lander to deploy the MAPP rover, GRACE, and PRIME-1 in sequence. The lander’s mission is expected to last ten days before the lunar night begins. Once the sun sets on the landing site, temperatures will become too cold to allow the lander to function, and thus, Athena is not expected to survive the lunar night.
On Friday, March 14, at around 06:00 UTC, Athena will have the opportunity to observe a total solar eclipse from its lunar vantage point. While a total lunar eclipse will be seen on Earth, Earth will eclipse the Sun at the Mons Mouton landing site, and Athena will use its batteries for power while the lander is in the eclipse’s shadow. Athena has five PAO cameras that will be used to capture the event, with GRACE carrying two additional PAO cameras.
Artist’s impression of IM-2 Athena on the lunar surface. (Credit: NASA)
Intuitive Machines plans to fly two more NOVA-C landers, each with a payload capacity of around 130 kg, to the lunar surface. The IM-3 mission, planned for the 2025-2026 timeframe, is expected to land at Reiner Gamma, a region of the Moon that is thought to be related to the lunar crustal magnetic field. IM-4 will follow in due course.
Meanwhile, development will continue on the NOVA-D lander, which will feature a greater payload capacity of 1,500 to 2,500 kg. NOVA-D is being developed to land large items like lunar terrain vehicles and fission surface power systems on the lunar surface. NASA’s Artemis program is attempting to return humanity to the Moon sustainably. Intuitive Machines and other companies are working to be part of an emerging lunar economy, with flights like IM-2, the 24th launch of the Falcon 9 in 2025, paving the way for renewed human activity on the lunar surface.
(Lead image: Falcon 9 B1083-9 launches with the IM-2 Athena lunar lander and secondary payloads. Credit: Julia Bergeron for NSF)