The special landing mission to the Moon’s south pole has been delayed for a few more months, until the fall of 2023. The lander, built by Texas-based Intuitive Machines, was scheduled to take off from the top of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in June after previous program disruptions. The latest delay was reported by SpaceNews, which listened to Intuitive Machines’ earnings call on Thursday, May 11. The company didn’t give much details about the launch, but CEO Steve Altemus said “significant progress” has been made on the mission, dubbed IM-1.

“We have some functional tests,” he said, of the Nova-C lander, according to SpaceNews. Altemus did not provide further details about the test and did not provide additional details about the planned launch.

Intuitive Machines aims to be the first private company to touch the moon softly. Other companies have tried this before, but without success. Recently, Japan’s ispace lander failed during a landing attempt on April 25. Prior to that, SpaceIL’s Beresheet lunar lander crashed during a landing attempt in April 2019.

Intuitive Machines’ IM-1 is expected to land in a south polar crater called Malapert A, with five NASA science experiments on board. Initially, the mission was targeting more equatorial regions, but NASA directed the landing site south.

NASA commissioned Intuitive Machines and a number of other companies to download scientific payloads for the agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. CLPS is designed to support the Artemis program, which aims to land astronauts near the Moon’s south pole during the Artemis 3 mission in 2025 and then build one or more bases in the area.

Intuitive Machines is developing two more missions for NASA. IM-2 is also expected to land near the south pole, near Shackleton Crater, while IM-3 is expected to land on a rotating structure called Rainier Gamma.

In a phone call for the first time since Intuitive Machines went public in February, Altemus said the IM-2 could be delayed by waiting for the IM-1. The IM-3 is currently expected to launch in 2024.

Intuitive Machines reported an operating loss of $14 million in the last quarter, compared to $4.5 million in the same quarter of 2022; A portion of the loss, $2.8 million, came from merger-related costs that took the company public. Quarterly revenue was the same as last year, with $18.2 million in 2023 and $18.5 million in 2022, SpaceNews reported.