IM-1 was a robotic Moon landing mission conducted by Intuitive Machines (IM) in February 2024 using a Nova-C lunar lander.

[12] Excerpts from NASA documents obtained by The New York Times suggested the agency would prioritize the private spaceflight sector.

[17][18] The Peregrine landing at Gruithuisen Domes was abandoned when a propellant leak was observed after launch, and the spacecraft was guided to re-enter Earth's atmosphere.

Additionally, a camera built by students at Embry–Riddle Aeronautical University, Daytona Beach, a planned Moon telescope, and a Jeff Koons art project were also on board.

[42] On February 13, IM announced that two wet dress rehearsals loading Odysseus with propellants had been successful and they were ready for launch.

[20][45] After separation from the launch vehicle, the Nova Control operations center established communication with the lander and conducted initial checkouts.

Trent Martin, Intuitive Machines vice president of Space Systems, described this as a "critical step" for the mission.

Intuitive Machines reported the 408-second main engine LOI burn placed the lander in a 92 km (57 mi) lunar orbit.

[37] Teams on the ground worked around the issue by reprogramming Odysseus to use data from an experimental NASA payload, the Navigation Doppler Lidar for Precise Velocity and Range Sensing.

Because the laser instruments on Odysseus for measuring altitude were not working during descent, the spacecraft landed faster than planned on a 12-degree slope.

[73] Based on Earth and moon positioning, the IM team reported that flight controllers would continue to communicate with Odysseus until Tuesday (February 27) morning.

[41] In a press conference the same day, Intuitive Machines said the lander was in its final hours of operation as the sun moved out of view of the one illuminated solar panel.

[6] About one month after Odysseus landed on the Moon, Intuitive Machines reported that they could not re-establish contact with the lander after the lunar night, bringing an end to the IM-1 mission.

[4] The EagleCam was a deployable CubeSat camera system designed especially to photograph the lunar landing of the Nova-C Odysseus lander on the Moon.

[39][76] Designed and manufactured by staff and students working in the Space Technologies Laboratory at Embry–Riddle Aeronautical University, Daytona Beach,[39][76] it was intended to deploy from Odysseus and take the first photographs of a spacecraft landing on the moon from a third-person perspective.

A fourth[78] camera was included to test another one of EagleCam's payloads, an electrodynamic dust shield (EDS), created by the Swamp Works facility at Kennedy Space Center.

EagleCam would've assisted in the objectives of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, such as gaining a better understanding of the local lunar surface features to assist with preparations for future manned and unmanned missions to the Moon's south pole, through NASA's Artemis program.

[81][82] However, while photos of Odysseus were never taken by EagleCam, it still recorded and transmitted other types of data to Intuitive Machines and the Space Technologies Lab via the IM-1 lander.

[89] However, due to complications arising from a software patch which reconfigured the lander's sensors used during the final descent phase to the moon's surface, EagleCam was powered off and remained attached to Odysseus through landing.

[90][78] It was later ejected on February 28 but was a partial failure as it returned all types of data, except post IM-1 landing images that were the main aim of its mission.

So, the Embry‑Riddle team is working on that and wrestling with that to see if there’s anything they can do,” Steve Altemus, CEO of Intuitive Machines commented on EagleCam in a NASA-IM mission update.