Intuitive Machines and SpaceX both failed in their missions

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I was only in India for a week (and have had a week of recovering from jet lag), but it feels like I missed months of space news, judging by how much happened while I was gone. I’m not going to recap everything, but here are some quick highlights and (more importantly) why I think they’re significant.

(If you’re here to see my thoughts on the instrument shutdowns on the twin Voyager probes, you’ll have to wait until the Friday edition.)

Table of Contents

• Starship broke apart in flight…again

• The blood moon is coming March 13-14

• Intuitive Machines’ moon lander tipped over…again

• But Firefly landed on the moon successfully!

• Boeing Starliner astronauts to return March 16

Starship broke apart in flight…again

What happened: For the second time in two months, the upper stage of SpaceX’s Starship—also called Starship—broke apart in flight. This time, the debris rained down around Florida and the Caribbean, causing ground stops for up to two hours at airports in the area (including Miami and Fort Lauderdale airports).

The Super Heavy booster, however, successfully docked back at the launch site in Boca Chica, Texas. This is a huge win, as they’re clearly doing well at developing this technology, but it’s important to note that this is very much a secondary objective.

Landing the booster is very cool and complex, and it’s an absolutely stunning visual (I’m personally a sucker for watching any booster landing). But it’s not the primary objective of these flights, and it’s not what SpaceX really needs to be making progress on at this point in testing.

Why it matters: Given how influential the CEO has become in the federal government, 2025 should have been the year of SpaceX: less regulation, an incoming NASA administrator who’s very friendly to SpaceX, reducing NASA’s science operations while, presumably, shunting that money towards human spaceflight (that NASA will then pay SpaceX to accomplish). But things aren’t exactly going to plan.

This failure is especially interesting for a few reasons. First, SpaceX has an iterative design approach. They test and then fix what doesn’t work and then test again.

This is why every space reporter was telling the public that Starship and the Super Heavy not achieving stage separation on the first flight was not a big deal — because it wasn’t. The fact that it lifted off at all on that first flight, and didn’t blow up on the launch pad, was a great success. The point is, though, that we expected more progress from the second flight, and even more from the third, and we got it. That is, until now.

It’s not clear right now what went wrong on this flight, but the fact that it occurred at about the same point in the flight as the previous failure, and also appeared to come from the same part of the ship (the second stage engines) is telling. SpaceX diagnosed the issue in the previous flight as a propellant leak, but this might be an oversimplification of the issue, considering it was supposed to have been resolved before this flight.

This also means that SpaceX’s newly redesigned Starship upper stage has failed on both its flights, and what’s more, the FAA allowed SpaceX to fly this latest Starship flight without closing the mishap investigation into Flight 7. It’s unclear at this point whether grounding Starship will mean anything given the current environment, but I certainly hope the agency will be more rigorous this time around.

It’s also worth mentioning that SpaceX has had a rash of problems over the past year — Falcon 9 second stage problems, booster landing failures (the most recent one on March 2 was the result of a propellant leak). For a reliable rocket that is the workhorse of the global launch industry, these are increasingly concerning and I know I’m not the only one wondering whether SpaceX has been pushed to its limit and build quality is suffering as a result. We will see what happens.

The blood moon is coming March 13-14

What will happen: There will be a total lunar eclipse March 13-14, visible in the western hemisphere. Check out NASA’s post on the eclipse for details, but totality will begin at 2:26 AM ET/11:26 PM PT and last for 65 minutes. During totality, the moon will turn a rusty red, hence why this type of eclipse is called a blood moon.

Why it matters: Come on, it’s a lunar eclipse! I don’t think I have to explain why this is cool. If you’re willing to stay up for it, then it’s worth doing. (Between my jet lag, daylight saving time wreaking havoc, and my six year old being really concerned I’m going to leave again and waking me up in the middle of the night, I will not be staying up for this one.)

Intuitive Machines’ moon lander tipped over…again

What happened: Intuitive Machines, the first private company to successfully land a spacecraft on the moon, sent its second lander to the lunar surface. However, upon landing on March 6, Athena (the name of the Nova-C lander) tipped over — again.

Why it matters: When I called the last mission a success, despite the fact that the Odysseus lander was leaning on its side, people criticized me, calling me an apologist for Intuitive Machines (haha yeah right). But the fact is landing on the moon is hard, and they were able to eke some science out of the lander. The fact is they did soft land on the moon. For the first mission, anything more than that was just really a bonus.

So, why was I so eager to call that landing a success, while saying this one is mostly a failure? It’s for the same reason I’m willing to call Starship Flight 7 a partial success, while saying Flight 8 really was a failure: In space, failing is the name of the game. But the expectation is that people, organizations, and companies will learn from those failures and do better next time. When, seemingly, the exact same thing happens twice in a row? That to me is a failure.

It doesn’t matter what Intuitive Machines calls it (during press conferences, they reiterated again and again that the mission was a success.) The spacecraft did soft land near the South Pole of the moon, and that is an achievement. But it tipped over in such a way that this time, they couldn’t even really eke much science out of it.

Intuitive Machines declared an end to the IM-2 mission on March 7. Being able to do less than you did on the first mission is, to me, a failure.

The fact that Intuitive Machines is a private company is significant here. NASA doesn’t really have a problem calling a failure a failure — they’re usually pretty straightforward when things don’t go the way they’d hoped, even as they usually try to find the silver lining. But Intuitive Machines has to think about shareholder value as a publicly traded company, not to mention their executive compensation is almost certainly tied to the company’s stock performance — which, unsurprisingly, is not doing well. They had every incentive to spin this as a success, which to me is a larger problem with commercial spaceflight.

But Firefly landed on the moon successfully!

What happened: Some good news — Firefly landed its first lunar lander on the moon on March 2, the second private company to do so after Intuitive Machines. This lander, called Blue Ghost, did not tip over. It’s upright and stable.

Why it matters: For those of you who considered Intuitive Machines’ first landing a failure, then this would be the first successful private landing of a moon lander. Even if you do consider Intuitive Machines’ first landing a success (they did soft land on the moon, after all), this is the first fully successful, upright private lander on the moon. It’s a huge accomplishment.

The mission is scheduled to last until the next lunar sunset, which is March 16. It is expected to survive the total lunar eclipse’s 65 minutes of totality; Firefly is planning on taking pictures of the event from the moon.

Boeing Starliner astronauts to return March 16

What happened: Crew-9, which includes Boeing Starliner astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, will return on March 16, according to NASA. The launch for Crew-10 is currently scheduled for March 12. This assumes that everything goes nominally with both the Crew-10 launch as well as the weather for return.

Why it matters: At this point I could write an entire book on the saga of Boeing Starliner (worth noting: we still do not know what’s going to happen with the Starliner program). But at this point, it’s just good to know the astronauts are coming home and we can close the chapter on this troubled mission, which has become the subject of infuriating political stunts.