In developmentTrust: Agency-primaryLast verified
Nova-C IM-3
Targeted to be the first surface mission to land inside a lunar magnetic anomaly (swirl). Manifest includes three NASA-CADRE shoebox rovers, an ESA actuated laser retroreflector, and the Australian ALEPH-1 plant-growth payload. Verified still pre-launch as of 2026-06-12 (second-half-2026 target); descent profile upgraded post-IM-2 with redundant laser rangefinders and 12 calibration orbits before landing.
Mission specifications
- Operator
- Intuitive Machines
- Prime contractor
- Intuitive Machines
- Launch
- 2026-H2 (NET) — Falcon 9 from LC-39A
- Landing site
- Reiner Gamma lunar swirl, Oceanus Procellarum
- Customer
- NASA-CLPS
- Payload
- 4 NASA payloads + rover + data-relay satellite + secondary payloadsas of [1]
Key findings
- 1.Aims to be the first mission ever to land inside a lunar swirl — the bright, looping Reiner Gamma feature in Oceanus Procellarum — to study why a strong, unexpected crustal magnetic anomaly sits there.
- 2.Will carry Johns Hopkins APL's Lunar Vertex investigation, pairing lander-mounted instruments with a Lunar Outpost rover (carrying an APL magnetometer and a multispectral microscope) to map the swirl's mini-magnetosphere from the surface for the first time.
- 3.Is manifested to deploy NASA JPL's CADRE team of small autonomous rovers, designed to operate as a mesh-networked swarm taking simultaneous distributed measurements across a single lunar day.
- 4.Plans to host an international payload suite including ESA's MoonLIGHT Pointing Actuator (MPAc) laser retroreflector, KASI's LUSEM space-environment monitor, AstroForge's Vestri resource-prospecting payload and the Australian ALEPH-1 plant-growth experiment.
- 5.Targets launch no earlier than the second half of 2026 on a Falcon 9 from Kennedy Space Center LC-39A, flying a Nova-C lander with a descent design reworked after IM-2 — including dual-vendor redundant laser rangefinders and a plan for up to 12 lunar orbits (versus three) to calibrate the lasers before landing.
Mission outcome
IM-3 is Intuitive Machines' third CLPS lander and, as of mid-2026, remains in development ahead of a launch targeted no earlier than the second half of 2026 on a Falcon 9 from LC-39A. Its stated goal is a first-of-its-kind touchdown inside the Reiner Gamma lunar swirl to investigate the crustal magnetic anomaly behind that puzzling surface pattern, using the Lunar Vertex instrument suite plus a rover, a CADRE robot swarm, and international payloads from ESA, KASI, AstroForge and Australia. If it succeeds, IM-3 would deliver the first surface measurements of a lunar mini-magnetosphere and validate a descent design reworked after IM-2's sideways landing — but no results exist yet, as the mission has not flown.
