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| Attribute | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Operator | Intuitive Machines | ispace | CNSA |
| Prime contractor | Intuitive Machines | ispace | China Academy of Space Technology (CAST) |
| Status | Landed | Lost | Landed |
| Customer | NASA-CLPS | private | CNSA |
| Launch date | 2025-02-27 | 2022-12-11 | 2024-05-03 |
| Landing date | 2025-03-06 | 2023-04-25 | 2024-06-01 |
| Landing site | Mons Mouton plateau, lunar south pole (~400 m off target) | Atlas crater, Mare Frigoris (planned; impacted at altitude ~5 km) | Apollo crater, South Pole-Aitken Basin (lunar far side) |
| Payload | 10 payloads delivered (2025-03-06) | Rashid rover (10 kg, UAE/MBRSC) + Sora-Q (0.25 kg, JAXA) + commercial (2023-04-25) | 1,935.3 g of lunar far-side regolith returned to Earth (2024-06-25) |
| Contract value | $62.5M (2025-02-27) | — | — |
| Outcome | Soft-landed but tipped onto its side after altimeter failure caused the lander to strike a plateau and skid into a crater rim. Power depleted within ~24 hours; ~250 MB of data transmitted including TRIDENT drill range-of-motion demonstration. | Travelled ~1.4M km — at the time, furthest a privately funded spacecraft had flown. Software flagged the radar altimeter as faulty after the lander crossed a crater rim cliff and ignored its readings. Lander ran out of fuel hovering ~5 km above surface and free-fell. | First-ever sample return from the lunar far side and the South Pole-Aitken Basin. Used the Queqiao-2 relay satellite for far-side comms. Samples revealed unexpectedly cohesive grain behavior and excavated material from the Moon's mantle. |
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