Lunar dreams Intuitive Machines set for second landing, looking to build a lunar economy "You just can't trash everything associated with the Moon and go to Mars." Eric Berger Jan 9, 2025 10:55 am | 2 A view of the second Intuitive Machines lander on Wednesday. Credit: Eric Berger A view of the second Intuitive Machines lander on Wednesday. Credit: Eric Berger Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreFive years ago, a small company in Houston named Intuitive Machines had just 30 employees, a couple of 3D printers, and a few soldering irons.Oh, and it had some big dreams. The company's founders wanted to open a business on the Moon.On Wednesday morning, when I drove into the company's new headquarters at Spaceport Houston, there were no spaces to park in a lot filled with hundreds of cars. Inside, the offices were buzzing. And a large integration hangar was packed with hardware: two lunar landers, two lunar rover mock-ups, a hopper, and other spaceflight vehicles.This is what can happen when NASA strikes the right balance with the commercial space industry.In May 2019, NASA issued the first three awards as part of its Commercial Lunar Payload Services Program to pay private companiesin this case, Astrobotic, Orbit Beyond, and Intuitive Machinesto deliver scientific payloads to the lunar surface. It's been a long road since then. Astrobotic's first mission a year ago failed on the way to the Moon. Orbit Beyond dropped out. But Intuitive Machines largely succeeded, putting its Odysseus lander on the Moon, albeit sideways, after its altimeter failed. For the first time ever, a private company successfully made a soft landing on the Moon.Now, it's going to try again.To the Moon in a week"For us, it's been a real journey," said the chief executive of Intuitive Machines, Steve Altemus, as we stood a few feet away from the company's second lunar lander, which will soon be shipped to a launch site in Florida. "In February of 2023, we went public, and that was a huge milestone for us in terms of growing up. In February 2024, we landed on the Moon, and everything has changed since then. And here we are again, ready to launch our second mission in February 2025."The company's lander, named Athena, is presently scheduled to lift off on a dedicated Falcon 9 rocket at the end of February, Altemus said. The current launch date supports a lunar landing about a week later, on March 6 or 7, near the South Pole of the Moon. The goal is to have about 10 days in sunlight before the lunar night sets in.With programs like the Commercial Lunar Payload Services Program, or CLPS, NASA is attempting to stimulate a lunar-based economy. No one is sure whether such an economy will actually develop, but NASA has had success previously in fostering an economy in low-Earth orbit. The lunar CLPS program is a clever attempt by the space agency to solve the chicken-and-egg conundrum when it comes to the Moon. Lander companies like Intuitive Machines could not be sure any private companies actually wanted stuff delivered to the Moon. And private industry was unsure of building payloads and businesses without knowing a lander delivery service would exist.NASA stepped in and said it would be an anchor customer, buying about a dozen of lunar landing missions, each carrying several hundred pounds of cargo, to the Moon. For several million dollars, private companies could send payloads along to test new ideas.Lots of goodies on boardNASA's efforts seem to be working. There are a handful of larger NASA payloads onAthena. These include a NASA-supplied drill that will attempt to drill about 1 meter below the surface and look for water ice and other volatiles with a mass spectrometer.Additionally, there is a "hopper" funded by NASA and developed by Intuitive Machines. Named "Grace" Hopper after the mathematics pioneer, the hydrazine-fueled drone will "hop" into a nearby crater, potentially giving NASA its first detailed look inside a permanently shadowed region of a lunar crater. If this works, it will be exceptionally cool. Future hoppers are expected to have a range of about 15 miles (25 km).Some of the commercial payloads include "Freedom" from Lonestar Data Holdings as part of an effort to establish a physical data center beyond Earth; an autonomous rover developed by Lunar Outpost; a cellular network demo mission from Nokia that will relay communications from the rover and a hopper back to the Athena lander; and a small rover built by the Japanese Dymon corporation.Finally, there are some interesting payloads tagging along with the spacecraft to the Moon but not landing there. These include a small orbiter for NASA called Trailblazer, which seeks to map the distribution of water on the Moon. Additionally, the space mining company AstroForge is flying its Odin spacecraft, which will separate from Athena and seek to make the first-ever flyby of an asteroid by a commercial spacecraft.All in all, it's an incredibly fun mission. But Intuitive Machines has to deliver. And if Athena can successfully reach the lunar surface, it will send a strong signal to the commercial space industry in the United Statesand around the worldthat the Moon is open for business.What comes next?One thing Altemus wanted to speak about Wednesday was the renewed interest in Mars by the incoming Trump administration. "There's been a lot of churn about what this administration is going to do," he said. "But you just can't trash everything associated with the Moon and go to Mars. That doesn't make any sense from a national security standpoint."The next Trump administration is expected to have a renewed focus on Mars, fueled in part by Trump's interests as well as those of SpaceX founder Elon Musk. However, the next administration is also likely to value private companies that are already delivering on spaceflight, which includes Intuitive Machines and other participants in the CLPS program. In addition to Athena's launch in February, another CLPS missionFirefly's Blue Ghost landercould fly as early as January 15 on a Falcon 9 rocket.NASA's Artemis plan to send humans back to the Moon serves a couple of purposes, including not just commercial development but also reaching the South Pole before China's space program, which has set a date of its first astronaut landing by 2030. As part of that, Altemus believes the space agency should extend the CLPS program for another decade (it began in 2018) with a second phase starting in 2028. This would support medium-sized landers capable of sending a ton or two of cargo to the lunar surface and buttress NASA's human plans."I'm talking to anybody I can about what that looks like," he said. "You need that regular cadence of missions to keep learning and getting smarter about landing on the Moon as a country. It improves our supply chain, and it improves our pipeline of talent. It also gives us a better understanding of the conditions in the environment around the Moon.Eric BergerSenior Space EditorEric BergerSenior Space Editor Eric Berger is the senior space editor at Ars Technica, covering everything from astronomy to private space to NASA policy, and author of two books: Liftoff, about the rise of SpaceX; and Reentry, on the development of the Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon. A certified meteorologist, Eric lives in Houston. 2 Comments