Following the late Wednesday launch of Intuitive Machines Inc.’s second mission to the moon, the space exploration company’s shares increased by almost 3% during extended trading.
Athena, the company’s Nova-C lander, flew from the Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Complex 39A on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket to begin the IM-2 mission. SpaceX launched on the 24th of 2025.
At around 8:23 p.m. Eastern time, Athena established communication with Earthly ground stations.
Last year, Odysseus, the IM-1 mission from Intuitive Machines (LUNR), became the first commercial lander to properly land on the moon.
NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program includes IM-2, which aims to bring technology and science to the moon’s surface. After a roughly eight-day flight, Athena is expected to land at Mons Mouton, a plateau located roughly 100 miles from the lunar South Pole.
Chief Executive Steve Altemus characterized IM-2 as a “very complicated” prospecting mission that will send a drill, hopper, and rover to the lunar surface during a November conference call to discuss Intuitive Machines’ third-quarter results.
The space stock is a “pillar of long-term lunar infrastructure,” so invest in it.
A drill and a mass spectrometer to detect the presence of volatile materials or gases in the lunar soil are two of the three NASA payloads that Athena will transport to the moon’s surface. The lander’s top deck has a laser retroreflector array that will reflect laser light back to incoming or orbiting spacecraft in the future.
Since Apollo 17’s Challenger lunar module, Intuitive Machines’ uncrewed Odysseus lander became the first American spacecraft to arrive on the moon on February 22, 2024. When the lander landed close to the moon’s south pole, it flipped onto its side, but it was still able to talk to flight controllers. The last day of the mission was February 29, 2024.
In December, Intuitive Machines secured more contracts from NASA’s Near Space Network, continuing its string of significant partnerships. When the company revealed last year that NASA had given it the NSN contract for communication and navigation services for missions in near space—which stretches from the surface of the Earth to beyond the moon—its stock shot up. Additionally, Intuitive Machines received a $116.9 million NASA contract in late August to transport six science and technology payloads to the south pole of the moon.
Over the last 12 months, the company’s stock has increased 180.6%, surpassing the 17.5% return of the S&P 500 index.
