PRIME-1 (Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment-1)
NASA payload combining the TRIDENT drill (built by Honeybee Robotics) and the MSOLO mass spectrometer, flown on Intuitive Machines' IM-2 Athena lander, which landed on its side in a crater near Mons Mouton on 6 March 2025 and ended operations after roughly half a day. NASA reports the drill's auger, full extension, percussion and core heater were exercised and that MSOLO recorded scans in which the detected gases were attributed to the lander and Earth; NASA does not report a drilled regolith sample or any detection of lunar water.
Objective. Demonstrate drilling into the lunar south polar surface with on-site mass-spectrometer analysis of gases released from the cuttings, to characterize subsurface volatiles such as water ice.
Facts
- Kind
- Payload
- Carried by
- Intuitive Machines IM-2 (Athena lander)
- Mission type
- Technology demonstration
- Target
- MoonMons Mouton region, lunar south pole; landed in a crater off target (NASA text says about 400 m, NASA caption about 820 ft, NTRS slides about 500 m)
- Launch
- 2025-02-26
- Phase
- EndedNASA release 25-025 (2025-03-07) and NASA article updated 2025-04-29; launch date is NASA's Eastern-time date (NTRS slides give 27 Feb 2025 00:16 UTC).
- Outcome
- PartialBasis: agency statement
- Why it is included
- Stated resource objective
Outcome statement (agency statement)
While this mission didn't achieve all of its objectives for NASA, the work that went into the payload development is already informing other agency and commercial efforts
Participants
Operators, payload owners, carriers and customers are recorded separately.
| Organization | Role |
|---|---|
| National Aeronautics and Space Administration | Payload owner |
| Honeybee Robotics | Payload builder |
| Intuitive Machines | Carrier |
Resources and evidence
| Resource | Evidence |
|---|---|
| Water ice | Targeted |
| Volatiles | Targeted |
Open evidence gaps
- No peer-reviewed PRIME-1 results paper located; NASA said results would be published.
Sources
7 sourcesdetected elements likely due to the gases emitted from the lander's propulsion system
While this mission didn't achieve all of its objectives for NASA, the work that went into the payload development is already informing other agency and commercial efforts
researchers believe from the initial data that the gases detected were all anthropogenic
The lightweight, low-power augering drill built by Honeybee Robotics, known as TRIDENT, is 1 meter long
Intuitive Machines' IM-2 mission launched to the Moon on Feb. 26, 2025, from NASA Kennedy's Launch Complex 39A
will drill into the Moon's surface to collect samples
We captured 43 scans, 40 complete scans, 3 partial scans.