Innovative Lunar Hopper and Prospecting Rovers to Explore Moon’s South Pole
Later this month, SpaceX will launch a historic lunar mission carrying a groundbreaking suite of robotic explorers. The IM-2 mission, spearheaded by Houston-based Intuitive Machines, is scheduled for liftoff from Florida’s Space Coast within a four-day launch window starting on February 26. If successful, this mission will deploy the Athena lander to an ice-rich plateau just 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the Moon’s south pole, marking a significant step in lunar resource exploration.
Artistic rendition of Intuitive Machine's first Micro-Nova hopper, named Grace making its way to the moon’s surface.
Image credit: Intuitive Machines
Gracie: A Pioneering Lunar Hopper
One of the mission’s most ambitious payloads is Gracie, a 77-pound (35-kilogram) robotic hopper developed in partnership with NASA, which contributed $41 million toward its development. Named after computing pioneer Grace Hopper, this innovative spacecraft will use thrusters to hop across the lunar surface, testing a new mode of exploration for extreme environments.
Gracie’s planned trajectory consists of five sequential hops, with altitudes increasing progressively:
-First hop: 65 feet (20 meters)
-Second hop: 165 feet (50 meters)
-Third hop: 330 feet (100 meters)—this jump will carry the hopper into a permanently shadowed crater, dubbed Crater H.
Crater H, located 1,650 feet (500 meters) from Athena’s landing site, is approximately 65 feet (20 meters) deep. The mission aims to test whether Gracie can maintain communications while inside the crater using Nokia’s Lunar Surface Communication System, which will establish the first 4G/LTE network on the Moon. If the hopper loses signal, it is designed to autonomously leap back into
sunlight after 45 minutes or when surrounding temperatures drop below a critical threshold.
Athena, Intuitive Machines' second lunar lander. Image credit: Intuitive Machines
This marks the first-ever lunar hopper mission, though China plans to deploy a similar craft on its Chang’e 7 mission next year. The success of Gracie could revolutionize exploration of lunar craters and other difficult-to-access regions, much like NASA’s Ingenuity drone did on Mars, which completed 72 flights between 2021 and 2024.
At the heart of IM-2 is NASA’s Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment 1 (PRIME-1), designed to extract and analyze lunar regolith for water ice. PRIME-1 consists of two key instruments:
-A drill, capable of extracting samples from depths of up to 3.3 feet (1 meter).
-A mass spectrometer, which will assess the chemical composition of the samples, searching for water and other valuable compounds.
Additional Rovers to Aid Exploration
The IM-2 mission also carries several additional robotic explorers, each with unique capabilities:
-MAPP (Mobile Autonomous Prospecting Platform): This 22-pound (10-kilogram) rover, developed by Lunar Outpost, will use high-resolution optical and thermal cameras to map the lunar terrain and create 3D imagery of the polar region. It will also collect lunar regolith for NASA.
-AstroAnt: A small, prototype swarm robot from MIT, which will ride atop MAPP and gather temperature data. Equipped with four magnetic wheels, AstroAnt is designed to remain securely attached to MAPP as it traverses the lunar surface.
-Yaoki: A 17.6-ounce (498-gram) Japanese rover built by Dymon, which will serve as a technology
demonstrator for future robotic exploration.
1YAOKI is the lunar rover that will contribute to lunar development. It is the smallest, lightweight, and high-strength rover that will be sent to the Moon several times in a short period of time. YAOKI will lead the Moon development steadily forward, realizing the world’s first commercial lunar exploration in 2024. Credit: Dymon
Mission Timeline and Expected Operations
If all goes according to plan, the Athena lander will touch down on March 6 and operate for approximately 10 Earth days—until the sun sets at its landing site, depriving it of solar power.
This mission follows Intuitive Machines’ IM-1 mission, which made history in February 2024 when the Odysseus lander became the first privately built spacecraft to perform a soft lunar landing. However, that landing was not flawless—Odysseus hit the surface too hard, damaging a landing leg and coming to rest partially on its side.
Currently, two other private landers are en route to the Moon—Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost and Tokyo-based ispace’s Resilience, both of which launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 on January 15.
The IM-2 mission represents a bold step forward in lunar exploration, pushing the boundaries of robotic mobility, resource prospecting, and communications infrastructure on the Moon. If successful, the technologies demonstrated could lay the foundation for long-term human presence and resource utilization in deep space.
Add comment
Comments