IM-2 Mission Ends Early: Intuitive Machines’ IM-2 lunar mission concluded prematurely at 12:15 a.m. CST after landing on its side, limiting operations.
By Aniket Chakraborty
Mar 11, 2025
Historic Lunar South Pole Landing: The mission landed closer to the Moon’s South Pole than any previous lander, despite being 1,300 feet off target.
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NASA’s PRIME-1 Suite: The TRIDENT drill and MSOLO mass spectrometer demonstrated functionality, detecting gases from the lander’s propulsion system.
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Partial Data Collection: Despite the lander’s tilt, 250 MB of data was collected for NASA before battery depletion.
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Laser Retroreflector Array: A passive NASA instrument remains operational on the lander, providing a lunar surface reference point.
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Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS): IM-2 is part of NASA’s CLPS initiative to advance lunar science and exploration through private partnerships.
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Technological Insights: Nokia’s 4G/LTE and Nova-C Hopper technologies provided valuable data for future lunar missions.
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Future Missions Planned: Intuitive Machines has two more NASA deliveries scheduled for 2026 (IM-3) and 2027 (IM-4).
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CLPS Contracts: Five vendors have been awarded 11 lunar deliveries, sending over 50 instruments to the Moon under $2.6 billion in contracts.
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Learning from Setbacks: NASA views IM-2’s challenges as opportunities to refine technologies for future Moon and Mars exploration.