Is Intuitive Machines a Buy After Athena's Disappointing Landing?
Space exploration stock Intuitive Machines (NASDAQ: LUNR) recently had one of the more pivotal days in its history. Unfortunately, Mar. 6 ended up as a day of reckoning rather than one of celebration. Intuitive's second lunar lander, nicknamed Athena, reached the moon’s surface just before noon CST. However, Athena met a similar fate as Intuitive's first lander, Odysseus. Both landed in a sideways or tipped-over position.
Just like after the Odysseus attempt, Intuitive Machines' shares dropped sharply when news of the shaky Athena landing came out. The stock faced three consecutive trading days down 20% or more. Now, shares of Intuitive are down more than 56% from where they started 2025 as of the Mar. 17 close. Below are further details surrounding the Athena landing and implications for Intuitive's business model. What is next for this currently reeling stock, and is there now an opportunity in Intuitive shares?
Athena Landing Puts Intuitive in a Literal and Figurative Hole
Apart from the sideways landing, Athena also landed inside a crater 250 meters away from its target. Together, these factors meant that Athena could not recharge. Athena had power while on the Moon for less than 24 hours. This falls way short of the 10 days that scientists planned for. This is also significantly less time than the week Odysseus was operating on the Moon.
Adding to the disappointment is the fact that the most important payload likely did not accomplish its mission. NASA designed the PRIME-1 payload as a large drill at the bottom of Athena to look for frozen water under the Moon’s surface. Due to the sideways positioning, it's unlikely the drill was able to perform this task. Nokia's (NYSE: NOK) 4G/LTE communications payload aimed to demonstrate the use of cellular communications on the Moon. However, it only met some of its goals.
Overall, most of Athena’s payloads are not believed to have completed their missions, or at least did not do so to their full capabilities. This was not the case for Odysseus, who still completed almost all of their missions.
What’s more is that Athena seems to have suffered from the same issues as Odysseus, problems with its laser rangefinders. The fact that the same problems occurred indicates that Intuitive failed to learn and fix its mistakes to the extent it needed to. To make matters worse, the Blue Ghost lander from Firefly Aerospace landed perfectly just days before Athena’s attempt.
It operated on the Moon for 14 days and completed 100% of its mission objectives. However, Firefly landed in a less treacherous region of the Moon, making its attempt easier than Athena's. Still, many consider Blue Ghost to be the first fully successful Moon landing for the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program.
IM-3 Sets Intuitive Up for a Key Shot at Redemption
Despite Athena's failure and its apparent regression from the more successful Odysseus mission, Intuitive Machines is not done yet. The company is still contracted with NASA to attempt two more Moon landings. The next mission, known as IM-3 or PRISM, is set to launch between “late 2025 or early 2026," per NASA. The stakes of achieving full success in this next mission are now even higher.
The argument for NASA to keep giving money to Intuitive diminishes considerably if other firms are outperforming its abilities. Additionally, corporate partners will likely be more wary of putting payloads on Intuitive crafts now.
This jeopardizes the company’s ultimate business model of creating and being a key player in the “lunar economy." Still, Intuitive remains a very important player in the incredibly difficult task of landing on the Moon.
LUNR: High-Risk, High-Reward Thesis Appears True Now More Than Ever
Overall, it is clear that shares of Intuitive Machines can trade with extreme volatility. It is unrealistic to expect anyone to know for sure if future Intuitive crafts will successfully land on a rock nearly 240,000 miles away. Thus, it is very difficult to say whether Intuitive is now trading at a discount or not. A completely successful next landing would be reason for shares to blast off, but also reason for them to crater if a repeat of the last two attempts occurs.
Intuitive is building many different types of space technologies outside of landers for which NASA has given it rewards. This gives the stock large long-term potential; however, getting its next landing right is critical to the overall bull case.
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