New lunar mission to demonstrate search for water ice at Moon's south pole
February 26, 2025 | Berlin instrument flies to the Moon with IM-2 mission
New lunar mission to demonstrate search for water ice at Moon's south pole
Artist's impression shows Intuitive Machines’ Athena lander touch down near the lunar south pole
The space exploration company Intuitive Machines is preparing to land its second mission, IM-2, on the Moon, approximately eight days after launch from Earth. The Athena landing module is set to touch down near the lunar south pole, a region where deep craters remain in perpetual shadow due to the Sun’s low position on the horizon. These permanently shadowed areas are believed to contain water ice, a potential resource for future crewed missions. From the landing site, mission controllers plan to deploy and manoeuvre a rocket-powered hopping drone, named Grace, into one of these craters via a series of controlled jumps. Among the technologies onboard Grace is a radiometer developed by DLR and Freie Universität Berlin to measure the temperature inside lunar craters.
The Lunar RADiometer (LRAD) from DLR and FU Berlin
The Lunar Radiometer (LRAD) is integrated into Intuitive Machines' 70-centimetre-high propulsive hopping drone, Grace. One of several payloads on the IM-2 Moon mission to the Moon, it is designed to measure the temperature of the lunar surface at each of Grace's landing points, after the hopper jumps up to 600 metres. It will also demonstrate methods for detecting water ice deposits in other regions. The experiment was developed jointly by DLR and Freie Universität Berlin and has six channels, and a measuring head approximately seven cm in diameter.
On 22 February 2024, Intuitive Machines' IM-1 mission, launched a week earlier, successfully landed its Odysseus module at 80 degrees south latitude on Malapert-A crater near the lunar south pole. This marked the first soft landing of a probe built by a private space company on the Moon. Odysseus was in operation for seven days.
The Intuitive Machines lunar mission, IM-2, is targeted for launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
The company's Athena lunar lander is intended to land near the Moon's south pole approximately eight days later.
On board Athena is, among other instruments, NASA’s TRIDENT drill and MSolo mass spectrometer, a laser reflector, and the Intuitive Machines’ Micro Nova Hopper named Grace.
Grace is designed to make multiple flights, hopping into a permanently shadowed crater to take measurements with the radiometer developed by DLR and FU Berlin.
The scientific goal of IM-2 is to demonstrate the processes required to detect life-sustaining volatiles, such as water and carbon dioxide.
IM-2 is a part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative.
+++ The IM-2 lunar mission, from the private American company Intuitive Machines, has launched as planned on behalf of NASA on 27 February 2025 at 01:17 Central European Time (CET, 19:17 local time). It lifted off aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Eight minutes after launch, the mission reached a 'parking orbit'. At 02:01, CET the second stage was ignited, and the lunar lander separated at an altitude of 950 kilometres. At 02:19 CET, it transmitted its crucial first signal ('signal of acquisition') and is now on its way to the Moon, approximately 400,000 kilometres from Earth.
The Athena lander is scheduled to touch down near the Moon's South Pole on 6 March 2025. This is when the Lunar Radiometer (LRAD) experiment, developed at DLR and Freie Universität Berlin, will begin operations on the Grace hopper. +++
In the early hours of 27 February 2025, at 00:30 Central European Time, the launch window opens for the IM-2 mission, carrying the Athena lander from the US New Space company Intuitive Machines on its second mission to the Moon. On board is the Lunar RADiometer (LRAD), a scientific instrument developed by the German Aerospace Center (Deutsche Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) and the Institute of Geological Sciences at Freie Universität Berlin (FUB) for measuring temperatures without contact. On 22 February 2024, Intuitive Machines became the first space company in the world to successfully land on the Moon – at 80 degrees south latitude, near the Malapert-A crater. The Athena landing module, part of Intuitive Machines’ second mission, is now also set to touch down in the Moon's southern polar region near Mons Mouton, where it will search for water ice using a drill and a mass spectrometer.
On board Athena is Grace, an approximately 70 cm-high 'hopping' propulsive drone designed to autonomously explore the lunar surface during a series of short hops. And on board Grace is LRAD – an instrument designed to measure the temperature of the lunar surface to identify further regions of water ice.
Ice in the 'cold traps' of permanently dark craters
Near the Moon's south pole, the Sun is so low that some craters remain in shadow year-round. In these permanently shaded regions, temperatures below minus 160 °C are possible – so cold that, even in a vacuum, water ice does not sublimate (the process by which a substance changes directly from a solid to a gas without passing through the liquid state). LRAD is designed to jump with Grace into one of the Moon’s permanently shadowed craters to measure the temperature.
Water ice is an important resource for establishing sustainability on the Moon's surface, as it can be used both for drinking water and for the production of hydrogen and oxygen. In addition to supplying oxygen for breathing, both gases may be used as rocket fuel. If they could be extracted directly from the Moon's surface, this would save the trouble of transporting them from Earth to the Moon. The landing region, Mons Mouton, is located at approximately 85° South latitude, just 160 km from the Moon's south pole. It is one of several potential landing sites for the first human lunar landing since 1972, as part of NASA's Artemis campaign.
However, the mission remains a challenge. "Landing on the surface alone would be a big success, and the autonomous jumps of the hopper would be another milestone", says Heike Rauer, professor at the Institute of Geological Sciences at Freie Universität (FU) Berlin and director of the Institute of Planetary Research at DLR. "However, the project has already shown how close cooperation between a university, a non-university research institution, a publicly traded space exploration company and a medium-sized company can advance the exploration and utilization of the Moon".
The Moon's south pole and its surroundings are part of the lunar highlands, covered with countless impact craters of various sizes. These craters, formed mainly in the Moon’s early history, three to four billion years ago, have created a highly undulating landscape, with height differences of several thousand metres in some areas. The view spans from the prime meridian at approximately 85 degrees south latitude, over the south pole, and northward along the 180-degree meridian. The Athena lander of the IM-2 mission will land on the plateau of Mons Mouton (in the foreground), the highest elevation in the region. The south pole is located precisely on the left edge of Shackleton Crater, which has a diameter of 21 kilometres. The colour-coded topographic elevation data was obtained using the LOLA laser altimeter, which was superimposed on an image mosaic from the LROC camera. These instruments have been orbiting the Moon on NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter since 2009.
Video – Topography in the vicinity of the lunar south pole
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Video – Topography in the vicinity of the lunar south pole
The Moon's south pole and its surroundings are part of the lunar highlands, covered with countless impact craters of various sizes. These craters, formed mainly in the Moon’s early history, three to four billion years ago, have created a highly undulating landscape, with height differences of several thousand metres in some areas. The view spans from the prime meridian at approximately 85 degrees south latitude, over the south pole, and northward along the 180-degree meridian. The Athena lander of the IM-2 mission will land on the plateau of Mons Mouton (in the foreground), the highest elevation in the region. The south pole is located precisely on the left edge of Shackleton Crater, which has a diameter of 21 kilometres. The colour-coded topographic elevation data was obtained using the LOLA laser altimeter, which was superimposed on an image mosaic from the LROC camera. These instruments have been orbiting the Moon on NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter since 2009.
Credit:
NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio
Close cooperation between DLR and FU Berlin
LRAD was developed by DLR's Institute of Planetary Research in Berlin-Adlershof and the Institute of Geological Sciences of Freie Universität Berlin, and was built in close cooperation with the companies Magson and Astro- und Feinwerktechnik GmbH, also based in the capital. The sensors, optimised to measure low temperatures, were specially developed by the Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technology (IPHT) in Jena. The DLR Institute of Planetary Research has long-standing expertise in building radiometers, having used them in previous missions such as the DLR MASCOT lander on Japan's Hayabusa2 asteroid mission and NASA's InSight Mars lander.
FU Berlin is responsible for project management and a large part of the scientific data analysis. Using a model of lunar surface material developed there, the temperature is predicted based on assumptions about the material’s properties. By comparing these predictions with the surface temperatures measured by LRAD, researchers at FUB and DLR will be able to draw conclusions about the physical properties of the lunar material.
FUB researcher, project manager for LRAD and guest scientist at DLR, Maximilian Hamm, says: "LRAD began in 2022, and the exciting years of preparation lie behind us. It's great to be at the forefront of shaping this new chapter in space-mission history. We are now looking forward to the unique results from its measurements." The results of the mission are also eagerly awaited at DLR: "Exploring the Moon with lander missions remains a major technical challenge", says Matthias Grott, LRAD Project Lead at DLR's Institute of Planetary Research. "If we succeed in taking measurements in a permanently shadowed crater, that would be a unique achievement worldwide."
About Intuitive Machines
Intuitive Machines is one of several companies aiming to provide transport services to the Moon. The IM-2 mission is the company's second under NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, a key component of NASA's Artemis lunar exploration efforts. The science and technology payloads sent to the Moon's surface through CLPS are intended to lay the foundation for future human missions and a sustained human presence on the lunar surface. The LRAD project is funded by the German Space Agency at DLR with funds from the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, following a decision by the German Bundestag (Grant 50OW2103).
