{"id":9850,"date":"2025-05-14T17:26:22","date_gmt":"2025-05-14T09:26:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/intuitive-machines-ceo-points-to-issues-that-prevented-upright-touchdown-during-im-2-moon-landing\/"},"modified":"2025-05-14T17:26:22","modified_gmt":"2025-05-14T09:26:22","slug":"intuitive-machines-ceo-points-to-issues-that-prevented-upright-touchdown-during-im-2-moon-landing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/intuitive-machines-ceo-points-to-issues-that-prevented-upright-touchdown-during-im-2-moon-landing\/","title":{"rendered":"Intuitive Machines\u2019 CEO points to issues that prevented upright touchdown during IM-2 Moon landing"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_68929\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-68929\" style=\"width: 876px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-68929\" src=\"http:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/20250307_IM-2_on_side.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"876\" height=\"549\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/20250307_IM-2_on_side.jpg 876w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/20250307_IM-2_on_side-300x188.jpg 300w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/20250307_IM-2_on_side-678x425.jpg 678w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/20250307_IM-2_on_side-768x481.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 876px) 100vw, 876px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-68929\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Intuitive Machines\u2019 Nova-C lander, named Athena, is pictured on its side, lying on the Moon\u2019s surface following touchdown on Thursday, March 6, 2025. Image: Intuitive Machines<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The third attempt to land on the Moon for Houston-based Intuitive Machines is coming up in less than a year and the company said Tuesday it understands how to stick the landing on the next go around.<\/p>\n<p>During a first quarter earnings call, the company\u2019s Chief Executive Officer, Steve Altemus, said the mission team performed a \u201ccomprehensive post-mission review\u201d which included independent reviewers and external experts alongside the company\u2019s internal teams.<\/p>\n<p>He said there were three main issues that prevented their Nova-C lander, named Athena, from landing upright near the Moon\u2019s South Pole on March 6:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Laser altimeter interference during descent<\/li>\n<li>Challenging terrain and lighting effects<\/li>\n<li>Crater recognition tuning<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u201cWe saw signal noise and distortion that did not allow for accurate altitude readings,\u201d Altemus said. \u201cSouth Pole topography and low-angle sunlight created long shadows and dim lighting conditions that challenged the precision capability of our landing systems.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Regarding the final point, Altemus said, \u201cOur optical navigation used imagery from [the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter] at 100 km from the lunar surface that could not accurately account for how craters appear at lower altitudes with South Pole lighting conditions as you approach the landing site.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He said that as the company prepares for the launch of its third Nova-C lander they\u2019re working in adjustments to prevent to prevent a similar outcome from the IM-1 and IM-2 missions. Both of these missions were put together as part of NASA\u2019s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve added dissimilar and redundant altimeters to the sensor suite and they\u2019re going through more rigorous and extreme flight-like testing than we\u2019ve done before,\u201d Altemus said. \u201cWe\u2019ve incorporated an additional lighting-independent sensor for surface velocity measurements. We\u2019ve expanded onboard terrain crater database for enhanced navigation across the surface of the Moon.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAdditionally, we collected the most detained imagery of the lunar South Pole on Mission 2 and we\u2019re feeding this unique flight data directly into our machine learning algorithms to improve crater tracking and navigation performance in these extreme conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_69659\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-69659\" style=\"width: 876px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-69659\" src=\"http:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/20250513_IM-3_Nova-C_landing_render.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"876\" height=\"493\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/20250513_IM-3_Nova-C_landing_render.jpg 876w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/20250513_IM-3_Nova-C_landing_render-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/20250513_IM-3_Nova-C_landing_render-678x381.jpg 678w, https:\/\/spaceflightnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/20250513_IM-3_Nova-C_landing_render-768x432.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 876px) 100vw, 876px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-69659\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">An artist\u2019s rendering of its Nova-C lander approaching the surface of the Moon on the IM-3 mission, which is currently scheduled for the first half of 2026. Illustration: Intuitive Machines<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The IM-3 mission was selected by NASA in 2021 and came with a firm fixed-price contract valued at $77.5 million. The mission will carry four NASA science payloads to a region of the Moon called Reiner Gamma, located at 7.5 degrees North, 59 degrees West.<\/p>\n<p>Two of those payloads are small rovers. The Lunar Vertext (Lvx) is a rover that will help study the magnetic fields present at Reiner Gamma and the Cooperative Autonomous Distributed Robotic Explorers (CADRE) are a pair of suitcase-sided rovers that carry multiple cameras and sensors to capture 3D imagery of the Moon\u2019s surface.<\/p>\n<p>The IM-3 mission will also include the first in a series of lunar data relay satellites designed to support NASA\u2019s Near Space Network Services (NSNS) contract. Two more of these will launch on the IM-4 mission in 2027.<\/p>\n<h4>Lunar Terrain Vehicle latest<\/h4>\n<p>Pete McGrath, Intuitive Machines\u2019 Chief Financial Officer, said the company\u2019s first quarter revenue was $62.5 million, which was increase of about 14 percent from the fourth quarter of 2024. He said that was primarily due to payments from the IM-2 mission as well as progress milestones on the company\u2019s lunar terrain vehicle proposal.<\/p>\n<p>Altemus said the final proposals for for NASA\u2019s Lunar Terrain Vehicle (LTV) program will be due in late July and an award for a delivery mission is expected in the November timeframe. Asked by an investor if the proposed changes to the Artemis program as laid out in the President\u2019s budget outline would impact Intuitive Machines\u2019 ability to get its Moon Racer LTV to the Moon, Altemus said no.<\/p>\n<p>He pointed the fact that Intuitive Machines plans to launch the LTV atop its larger Nova-D lander and the two would launch initially atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-14WVLQXzlg?si=vta7UJLl4rG8nJ5D\" width=\"678\" height=\"381\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a very nice packaging with the launch vehicle, the heavy cargo lander and the LTV to get autonomous roving assets to the Moon,\u201d Altemus said. \u201cAnd what\u2019s important about that is that this continues our Moon-Mars strategy, which says learning about how to operate and do autonomous mobility on the Moon is directly applicable to the programs that would need the same capability at Mars.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd so, we\u2019re confident that the LTV\u2019s procurement is moving forward in spite of the changes to the Artemis program with [the Space Launch System rocket], Orion and Gateway.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As of now, NASA only intends to award one of the three contractors that\u2019s working on an LTV with a demonstration mission. However, Altemis said that the draft request for proposal document does reference an option \u201cto carry another vendor through the critical design review phase, which is about a year extension to the current phase that\u2019s out there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Intuitive Machines is competing with Lunar Outpost\u2019s Eagle rover and Venturi Astrolab\u2019s Flexible Logistics and Exploration (FLEX) rover for the NASA task order.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-uvdFO_Tj60?si=b2ewuVgj6kTQck7a\" width=\"678\" height=\"381\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Intuitive Machines\u2019 Nova-C lander, named Athena, is pictured on its side, lying on the Moon\u2019s surface following touchdown on Thursday, March 6, 2025. Image: Intuitive Machines The third attempt to land on the Moon for Houston-based Intuitive Machines is coming up in less than a year and the company said Tuesday it understands how to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1109,1110,503,1111],"class_list":["post-9850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-im-2","tag-im-3","tag-intuitive-machines","tag-nova-c"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9850"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9850\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}