After 50 Years, the U.S. Returns to the Moon With ‘Low-Cost’ Spacecraft. The Results Have Been Disastrous

Intuitive Machines’ Athena lunar module sent the image accompanying this article before running out of power. Like its predecessor, it landed on its side, preventing it from deploying its payloads. To make matters worse, its orientation and terrain didn’t allow it to recharge its batteries.

Athena (IM-2) is one of many missions in NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. Announced in 2018, it marks the U.S. return to the lunar surface more than 50 years after NASA halted lunar missions—manned or unmanned—following Apollo 17.

CLPS contracts private companies to transport NASA science experiments to the Moon. These companies develop commercial spacecraft, funding them with NASA contracts and investments from other agencies or companies interested in lunar cargo. For NASA, this approach is relatively low-cost, with contracts averaging $100 million per mission. By comparison, the Surveyor lunar landers of the 1960s cost 10 times as much, adjusted for inflation.

However, as early results show, it’s also a high-risk approach. NASA pays the agreed-upon amount and doesn’t cover cost overruns, transferring substantial technical and financial challenges to the companies. Failure is a manageable loss for NASA, so it continues launching CLPS missions. For the companies, pressure continues to mount.

A Rocky Start

The CLPS missions were scheduled to launch in 2020. OrbitBeyond canceled its contract in 2019 due to financial problems and exited before launch. Another selected company, Masten Space, went bankrupt in 2022, canceling its planned 2023 mission. Astrobotic, Firefly Aerospace, and Intuitive Machines eventually delayed their launches but remained in the program. Of the four CLPS missions launched to date, only one has achieved a fully successful lunar landing:

❌ Astrobotic’s Peregrine. The first CLPS mission. NASA awarded $79.5 million to deliver 14 payloads to the Moon. It launched on Jan. 8, 2024, aboard a ULA Vulcan Centaur rocket. A fuel leak shortly after launch prevented it from reaching the lunar surface, making it the first U.S. lunar landing attempt since Apollo but ultimately a failure.

❌ Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus. The IM-1 mission received $77.5 million from NASA to send six scientific instruments to the Moon. It launched on Feb. 15, 2024, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Unlike Peregrine, the Nova-C “Odysseus” spacecraft reached the lunar surface but landed on its side, preventing the deployment of many payloads. It operated for seven days before running out of power.

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✔ Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost. NASA awarded this mission a $101.5 million contract to deliver 10 payloads to the Moon. It launched on Jan. 15, 2025, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and landed smoothly and vertically on Mar. 2, 2025. This marked the first fully successful private lunar landing. The mission deployed a thermal probe beneath the lunar regolith, among other instruments.

❌️ Intuitive Machines’ Athena. The second Intuitive Machines mission received $47 million from NASA to deploy the PRIME-1 experiment in search of lunar ice. It launched on a Falcon 9 rocket on Feb. 27, 2025. Like Odysseus, the Athena spacecraft reached the Mons Mouton region near the Moon's south pole but encountered navigation sensor issues. As a result, it couldn't recharge its batteries and ceased operation after transmitting images and initial data.

A similar fate befell NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer orbiter, launched alongside Athena under the agency’s low-cost SIMPLEx program. NASA lost contact with the orbiter shortly after launch. Its predecessor, the LunaH-Map cubesat, launched with the Artemis I mission, also failed due to propulsion issues.

Another setback for CLPS was the cancellation of the VIPER rover after its construction. The NASA rover, designed to search for water ice at the lunar south pole, was set to launch on Astrobotic's Griffin module. NASA canceled the mission to avoid delays and cost overruns but later made the rover available for private operation.

Upcoming Launches

• Astrobotic, with the Griffin lunar lander scheduled for launch later this year.
• Intuitive Machines, with IM-4 (carrying the European Space Agency’s Prospect drill to the lunar south pole) and IM-3 (heading to the enigmatic lunar whirlpool, Reiner Gamma) in 2026.
• Firefly Aerospace, with Blue Ghost 2 next year and Blue Ghost 3 in 2028, using an orbiter and lander to explore the never-before-visited Gruithuisen Domes.
• Draper, aboard the APEX module from the Japanese company ispace, aiming to land on the Moon’s far side.

The Glass Half Full

Despite setbacks, each CLPS mission has contributed to industry development. While these missions lack the scientific depth of advanced programs like China's, CLPS provides NASA with a more economical and flexible approach to lunar exploration while fostering a lunar economy.

The program has had a rocky start—these were high-risk missions, after all—but it has achieved its goal of involving private industry in lunar exploration, reducing Moon mission costs, and producing some scientific results at a lower price. If the next missions improve their success rate, CLPS could provide the scientific foundation the Artemis program needs for future manned lunar missions.

Images | NASA | Firefly Aerospace

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