Micro-Nova

Overview

Micro-Nova is a rocket-propelled hopper built by Intuitive Machines to reach terrain a rover cannot: permanently shadowed regions, steep slopes and blocky ground [1]. It is a fully independent spacecraft with its own propulsion, avionics, power, flight control and communications, deployed from a lander rather than driven from one, and it lands under a precision landing and hazard avoidance system that images the surface and guides the vehicle itself.

The first unit flew on IM-2 as the payload named S. P. Hopper, alongside PRIME-1, a Nokia 4G/LTE network and the Lunar Outpost MAPP rover on the same lander [2]. Its goal was to demonstrate the technologies that make cost-effective access to inaccessible terrain possible: propulsion, terrain relative navigation, hazard avoidance, power, communications and thermal stability. Its three technology objectives, in order, were deployment from the host lander, independent power generation and management on the lunar surface, and end-to-end communication between hopper and lander.

Athena landed on its side on 6 March 2025 and the mission ended the following day [3]. The hopper was never released.

Specifications

Parameter	Value	Source
Height	70 cm	[1]
System mass	30 kg, demonstration configuration
System mass, extended	60 kg, same structure with a larger propellant tank
Payload capacity, extended	5 kg
Maximum one-way range, extended	over 30 km
Crater descent and return, extended	4 km deep
Guidance	precision landing and hazard avoidance from surface imaging
Instruments	medium angle camera, horizon camera, navigation camera, lunar radiometer	[2]

The range and crater figures are trajectory calculations for the larger configuration, not flown results. Propellant mass, specific impulse, hop accuracy, landing dispersion, power budget and thermal limits are not published for either configuration.

Mission profile

Parameter	Value	Source
Lander	Intuitive Machines Nova-C, Athena	[2]
Launch	27 February 2025	[3]
Landing	6 March 2025, Mons Mouton
Lander attitude	on its side
Mission end	7 March 2025
Hops performed	none

The plan described before flight was a demonstration at a permanently shadowed region under 200 m across near the south pole, returning color images of the interior at centimeter scale and measuring its temperature with a radiometer [1]. The abstracts written for it name a landing on the Spudis crater side of the Shackleton to de Gerlache connecting ridge in late 2022 or early 2023 [2], neither of which is where or when the mission eventually flew.

Mobility

Ballistic. The vehicle takes off, flies and lands under its own propulsion, which is what lets it enter a crater whose walls no wheeled vehicle could descend and leave again [1]. The same platform is offered optimized either for range or for payload mass, with the propellant tank as the variable: the 30 kg demonstration vehicle and the 60 kg variant share a structure.

No hop height, flight time, landing accuracy or slope capability is published, and none was demonstrated.

Power and energy

Independent power generation and management on the lunar surface was one of the three technology objectives, which is a statement that the vehicle does not depend on the lander for power once released [2]. No generation figure, battery capacity or duty cycle is published.

Thermal

Thermal stability is listed among the technologies the flight was to demonstrate [2]. No operating or survival temperature range, heater strategy or radiator approach is published, which matters more for this vehicle than for most: its target is the interior of a permanently shadowed region.

Compute and avionics

The hopper carries its own avionics and flight control [1]. No processor, memory or radiation tolerance approach is published.

Autonomy

The precision landing and hazard avoidance system images the surface and autonomously guides the vehicle to a site [1]. Terrain relative navigation and hazard avoidance are both named among the technologies the demonstration existed to prove, so neither was flight proven on this vehicle before IM-2 [2].

Communications

End-to-end communication between hopper and lander was the third technology objective [2]. Band, data rate and range are not published, and the lander carried a Nokia 4G/LTE network whose relationship to the hopper’s own link is not described in the published abstracts.

Payload and instruments

Four instruments were carried for the demonstration: a medium angle camera, a horizon camera, a navigation camera and a lunar radiometer [2]. The camera set is what returns the centimeter-scale color imagery of a permanently shadowed region interior, and the radiometer measures its temperature [1].

Modes of operation

Stowed on the lander deck, deployed, and flying. The published concept of operations for the IM-2 demonstration is a sequence of five hops [2]. None was performed.

Ground operations

Not published beyond the statement that the hopper deploys from and communicates through the host lander [1], [2].

Technologies developed

Nothing was demonstrated in flight. What the program established before it is a product definition: a hopper offered as a commercial delivery service alongside fixed surface services, rover services and satellite delivery, rather than as a one-off payload [3]. That framing is what put a hopper on a commercial lunar delivery at all, and the specification that follows from it is a single structure sized between 30 and 60 kg by its propellant tank, trading one-way range against payload mass [1].

References