RobotRisk / Intuitive Machines / 2024-02-22

space robotics · mission-loss

IM-1 Odysseus lander tips over on lunar touchdown

S4 · 02/22
2024 · 18:23 ET · Intuitive Machines · lunar south pole, Moon

Record

Company	Intuitive Machines
Category	space robotics
Type	mission-loss
Date	02/22 2024
Time of day	18:23 ET
Location	lunar south pole, Moon
Severity	S4 (serious injury, total loss, or grounding)
Scale	1 lander
Confidence	high
Verification	Yes - adversarially checked against the cited source
Source	Space.com

What happened

Intuitive Machines' Odysseus lander caught a leg during a fast, lateral descent and tipped onto its side near the lunar south pole, curtailing the mission's operational capability though it still returned data from NASA payloads.

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Comparable mission-loss events in space robotics

Sev	Date	Company	Event
S4	2025-06-05	ispace	HAKUTO-R Mission 2 (Resilience) lander crashes on second lunar landing attempt
S4	2025-03-06	Intuitive Machines	IM-2 Athena lander topples over in shadowed crater, mission ends early
S4	2024-03-01	Maxar Space	NASA cancels $2B OSAM-1 robotic satellite-servicing mission over Maxar performance
S4	2024-01-09	Astrobotic	Peregrine lunar lander propellant leak forces abandonment of Moon landing
S4	2023-04-25	ispace	HAKUTO-R Mission 1 lander crashes into Moon

Other Intuitive Machines entries

03/06
2025 - IM-2 Athena lander topples over in shadowed crater, mission ends early

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