KENNEDY SPACE CENTER — Intuitive Machines confirmed that its lunar lander did touch down on the moon Thursday, but in an update from officials, they are still trying to determine the position of the IM-2 mission’s Nova-C craft and where exactly it is.

Last week, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket launched the IM-2 lunar lander named Athena from the Kennedy Space Center.

And nearly eight days later, the 14-foot (4.3-meter) tall Nova-C lunar lander autonomously touched down at 12:32 p.m. ET in a location known as Mons Mouton, which is about 100 miles (161 kilometers) from the moon’s South Pole. 

However, its fate is currently unknown. During a NASA live feed of the mission, Intuitive Machines stated Athena has one radio that is working, but the lunar lander lost another radio.

“It looks like it’s down,” an IM-2 team member said, confirming the craft landed on the moon.

“Athena is on the surface on the moon,” said Josh Marshal, communications director at Intuitive Machines, in the live feed.

However, the IM-2 and NASA are trying to determine its position and the health of the vehicle.

During a teleconference with NASA and Intuitive Machines officials later on Thursday afternoon, they gave an update on Athena. 

Intuitive Machines CEO Steve Altemus said that while he considers it a success to have the Nova-C lunar lander shipped from Texas to Florida and a week later, having it on the moon. 

However, he admits that they do not know its exact position of the craft and his team is waiting for photos to come in to determine its angle.

Altemus did say that the IM-2 team does have command of the lander's uplink and downlink capabilities and can command payloads on and off the vehicle. 

He added that IM-2 is working with NASA to determine which payloads will take priority once they determine the health and position of the vehicle. And officials did say that there might be some payloads that will not be used for this mission.

NASA's Science Mission Directorate Associate Administrator Nicky Fox shared during the teleconference that they do not know the exact location of where Athena landed but it is still in Mons Mouton, which is the size of the state of Delaware.

Altemus added that they will use NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter that is orbiting the moon to determine where exactly Athena is. 

She said that while Athena did not land the way they hoped it would, it is still a learning process. 

Clayton Turner, NASA's associate administrator for Space Technology Mission Directorate, echoed that, saying the machine-learning landing program on Athena may have been trying to determine what a crater is and they have to look through the data to determine what exactly happened. 

This is not the first hiccup in the mission as NASA lost communications with one of its payloads the Lunar Trailblazer, a small satellite.

“Based on telemetry before the loss of signal last week and ground-based radar data collected March 2, the team believes the spacecraft is spinning slowly in a low-power state. They will continue to monitor for signals should the spacecraft orientation change to where the solar panels receive more sunlight, increasing their output to support higher-power operations and communication,” NASA stated on Tuesday.

Last year, IM-1 touched down on the moon but tipped over after one of its landing legs broke off.

Learning about the IM-2 payloads and CLPS

With a combination of NASA and commercial company payloads, Athena has a lot of equipment and new technology to test out in the search of volatiles that could be anything, such as trapped water ice, particles from an early atmosphere of the moon or just different gases.

Scroll down to learn more about these payloads.

This is all part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, which allows the U.S. space agency to work with commercial companies to send technology and experiments to the moon’s surface. 

In a previous interview with Spectrum News, NASA’s Deputy Associate Administrator for Exploration, Dr. Joel Kearns talked about the benefits of the CLPS program.

“Well, you know, CLPS is a new way to do business for NASA. Instead of building our own spacecraft or running a mission, we have contracted with American companies to hitch a ride on the missions they want to do and bring us science to the moon that way. And that’s a way to try to tap into, you know, innovation and entrepreneurship and new technical approaches by U.S. companies, but also to help build a lunar economy,” he said.

Kearns also talked about how many companies joined the IM-2 mission as space has grown to be a new economic market.

“People were paying in Intuitive Machines to take their things to the moon again on their mission, which NASA doesn't have anything to do with. So, it's an indication that there is interest and there is a demand. And as you said, there's another mission flying, too. There's the Japanese commercial mission from ispace, Japan. And if you look at what they're flying, they're flying a lot of commercial things from Japan,” he said.

The IM-2 mission will last 10 days before the lunar night freezes Athena and its companions.

How the IM-1 mission made history

In 2024, Intuitive machines made history as the first private company to land on the moon.

The IM-1 mission’s Nova-C lunar lander named Odysseus had a problem as it came in for a landing as one of its legs dug into the lunar soil and broke off, resulting in it tipping over.

It was called a “successful mission” because all the payloads were in working order and sent information back to Earth.

Not alone on the moon

Athena will not be alone on the moon, however.

Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lunar lander made the first successful moon landing by a commercial company early Sunday morning.

And the Japanese company ispace will see its HAKUTO-R lunar lander named RESILIENCE land on the moon between April and May of this year.  

Intuitive Machines' payloads