Intuitive Machines' CLPS bet: first US Moon landing since Apollo, then Athena tips too

Intuitive Machines designs, builds and flies Nova-C lunar landers under NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, selling delivery of NASA and commercial payloads to the Moon and providing lunar-orbit and communications services from Houston.

That fixed-price NASA CLPS contracts could turn a Houston startup into the first commercial Moon carrier, landing near south-pole ice before anyone else.

Three US space veterans — Steve Altemus, Kam Ghaffarian and Tim Crain — founded Intuitive Machines in Houston in 2013 to sell lunar surface access, lunar orbit delivery and communications at lunar distance. Their opening came through NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, under which the agency hires private companies to scout the Moon for its Artemis astronaut program; Intuitive Machines won one of the first CLPS lander task orders and developed the Nova-C lander around a methane-oxygen propulsion system.

The bet first paid off with IM-1: launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Kennedy Space Center on 2024-02-15, the Nova-C lander Odysseus touched down near Malapert A crater, about 300 km from the Moon's south pole, at 6:23 p.m. ET on 2024-02-22 — the first US lunar landing since Apollo 17 in 1972 and the first by a private spacecraft. But the landing was rough: the lander's laser range finder had stopped working, descent had to use backup lasers from a NASA payload, a landing leg broke, and Odysseus tipped onto its side, operating about a week before the lunar night killed it. A year later IM-2's lander Athena launched on 2025-02-26 and touched down on 2025-03-06 at Mons Mouton, about 160 km from the south pole — but landed roughly 250 meters off target inside a crater and tipped over again.

Athena's mission was declared over on 2025-03-07, less than 24 hours after landing: the tipped lander could not recharge, its batteries drained within about 12 hours, and NASA's ice drill could not penetrate the surface. CNBC reported the company's stock fell 29% in after-hours trading on landing day. NASA, which had paid $62 million for three experiments on IM-2, still holds contracts with Intuitive Machines for two more lunar deliveries — IM-3 scheduled for 2026 and IM-4 for 2027 — and the company said it must determine what went wrong before launching again.

NASA's CLPS program was the enabling customer: fixed-price milestone task orders let Intuitive Machines fund landers without NASA owning the design, making the Moon a delivery market.

They aimed at the hardest target — the south pole, where NASA will send astronauts and ice may sit in shadowed craters — because proving that route first carried the most strategic value.

First-mover status was itself the asset: Odysseus made LUNR a public 'Moon stock' and put Intuitive Machines ahead in NASA's delivery queue, even though a tipped lander is not yet a reliable product.

A historic 'first' is not a reliable product: two Moon landings, two tipped landers, yet NASA kept ordering — the customer was buying capability development, not guaranteed delivery.

As of 2025-03-07, IM-2 was over: Athena lay tipped in a crater near Mons Mouton with solar panels unable to recharge, and the company was assessing data before its next flight. Intuitive Machines remains a going concern — NASA still holds contracts for two more deliveries, IM-3 scheduled for 2026 and IM-4 for 2027 — so the failure did not end the business. The open question is the one both landings exposed: can the final phase of autonomous landing be made reliable enough to stop tipping, because NASA keeps ordering but each toppled mission wastes the payloads customers paid to land upright.