IM-2 Nova-C Athena lander
Athena, Intuitive Machines' Nova-C lander, targeted Mons Mouton near the lunar South Pole carrying NASA's PRIME-1 ice-prospecting suite - built around the TRIDENT drill and MSolo mass spectrometer. It touched down on 6 March 2025 closer to the South Pole than any prior lander, but an altimeter failure during descent left it lying on its side; operations ended within 13 hours with PRIME-1 unable to drill.
Two other payloads were lost independently of Athena's landing: AstroForge's Odin asteroid-prospecting probe lost contact after deployment and never departed for near-Earth asteroid 2022 OB5, and NASA's Lunar Trailblazer water-mapping orbiter was lost after separation.
LIFTOFF
FEB 27 2025launched from LC-39A Kennedy
aboard Falcon 9 B5 F9-441 into TLI
Broadcast
Watch how the launch went
Booster
B1083.9
Landed on drone ship · ASOG
Payloads · 10
- 01
IM-2 Nova-C Athena lander
Lunar lander
- 02
Brokkr-2 Odin
Technology demonstration
- 03
Chimera-1
Space tug
- 04
Lunar Trailblazer
Lunar orbiter
- 05
AstroAnt
Lunar rover
- 06
Micro Nova Gracie
Lunar hopper
- 07
MAPP LV1
Lunar rover / Technology demonstration
- 08
Yaoki
Lunar rover
- 09
2 Undisclosed satellites
- 10
1 Undisclosed satellite

