Intuitive Machines to launch 2nd lunar lander for NASA: 5 things to know about mission

The U.S. company that made history in 2024 with an uncrewed lunar landing is looking to do it again .

The second lunar lander developed and operated by Intuitive Machines, a Houston, Texas-based space exploration company, is set to launch this week for the moon, according to NASA . The U.S. space agency is paying top dollar to finance the mission, which will see to the delivery of a number of scientific instruments that will hunt for water under the lunar surface.

Intuitive Machines etched its name in the history books a year ago when its spacecraft, Odysseus, became the first commercially-built lunar lander to ever make it to the moon. The lunar mission also marked the United State's return to the moon for the first time in more than five decades since NASA's Apollo era came to an end.

The lunar lander, which could launch this week aboard a SpaceX rocket , is among a fleet of moon-bound uncrewed spacecraft slated to get off the ground in 2025 as NASA prepares to send humans back to the surface in the years ahead. Another lander developed and operated by Texas-based Firefly Aerospace is already more than a month into its own voyage to the moon , with plans to land early in March.

NASA's Artemis campaign envisions the moon as being a crucial pit stop to prepare U.S. astronauts and their vehicles to travel onward to Mars .

Here are five things to know about the upcoming lunar lander mission, dubbed IM-2 .

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What is the IM-2 lunar mission?

Athena, the name of the six-legged Nova-C lander, is carrying a number of scientific instruments meant to pave the way for astronauts to return to the lunar surface as early as 2027.

NASA is just one of many customers on the mission, which it is helping to bankroll under its Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, or  CLPS . The CLPS program allows the space agency to find lower-cost methods to finance lunar deliveries without having to develop spacecraft of its own.

The solar-powered Athena lander, a hexagonal cylinder capable of carrying up to 300 pounds of cargo, will prominently carry a drill and a mass spectrometer,  NASA said . Drilling operations will seek to detect and measure the potential presence of gases from beneath the lunar soil.

Other objectives including testing a a Nokia LTE 4G communications system and deploying a propulsive drone capable of hopping across the lunar surface.

Additionally, an instrument known as a Laser Retroreflector Array on the top deck of the lander will be activated. The array should be able to bounce laser light back at any orbiting or incoming spacecraft – a vital capability that will provide a permanent reference point on the lunar surface.

When will the NASA-backed mission launch and land?

The four-day window for the launch opens Wednesday, Feb. 26.

Athena  will hitch a ride on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, which will lift off from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

If it launces Feb. 26, the lander will attempt to touch down March 6 on the moon's south pole near a plateau known as  Mons Mouton . The mesa-like lunar mountain towers over a landscape carved by craters , including the Shackleton Crater , a cold, dark region where water ice and other materials that turn easily into gas are thought to be abundant.

Launching as a rideshare on the SpaceX rocket with the IM-2 delivery,  NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer  spacecraft will also begin its own seperate journey to lunar orbit to map the distribution of the different forms of water on Earth's only natural satellite .

What is Artemis and why is NASA interested in the moon?

The mission is the latest uncrewed lunar venture that is meant to lay the foundation for astronauts to return to the moon and set up a long-term lunar settlemen t on the south pole.

NASA, which helped finance the mission as its primary customer, has said that water ice thought to be abundant in the region could  be extracted and used for drinking , breathing and as a source of hydrogen and oxygen for rocket fuel to make expeditions to Mars possible.

But while NASA has been preparing for crewed moon missions under its Artemis campaign – its first lunar program since the Apollo missions ended in 1972 – President Donald Trump seems to favor focusing on Mars . During his inauguration speech in January, Trump made no mention of NASA's lunar ambitions while touting his goal of humanity reaching the Red Planet during his second term.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk, a staunch Trump ally who has often stated his goal of making " life multiplanetary ," has himself envisioned a more aggressive approach of sending humans straight from Earth to Mars –  perhaps as soon as 2028 .

Musk's dream would involve SpaceX's massive Starship vehicle, which has yet to reach orbit in  any of its seven flight tests so far . The 400-foot Starship vehicle, though, has also been hired by NASA to one day meet Artemis III astronauts in orbit and ferry them down  to the lunar surface from the Orion capsule.

What happened on the first Intuitive Machines mission?

The launch of the lunar landing could come just more than a year after Intuitive Machines ushered in America's first return to the moon in more than 50 years.

The 14-foot-tall Nova-C the lander, nicknamed Odysseus for the hero of Greek myth,  touched down Feb. 22 2024 , landing in the southernmost location of any lunar craft before it. The lander  remained functional for a week , collecting data and photos that were beamed back to Earth.

Odysseus' landing not only returned America to the moon for the first time since 1972, but also marked the first time a commercial company built a spacecraft that made it to the lunar surface.

Firefly Aerospace also has lander on way to moon

If all goes to plan, Athena could touch down just four days after another lunar lander manufactured by a seperate company makes its own landing.

Firefly Aerospace's lunar lander, named Blue Ghost, launched Jan. 15 on a much longer spaceflight bound for the moon. NASA, which is also the primary customer on the mission under its CLPS program, paid for a fleet of scientific instruments to be delivered and tested once the spacecraft attempts to land on March 2.

The targeted landing site is on the moon's near side at a volcanic feature called Mons Latreille. The region is located within Mare Crisium, a 300-mile-wide basin believed to have been created by early  volcanic eruptions  and flooded with basaltic lava more than 3 billion years ago.

After the 45 day spaceflight, Firefly's team plans to operate the NASA's 10 instruments for a complete lunar day, equivalent to about 14 Earth days. Blue Ghost also plans to capture high-definition imagery of a total eclipse as the Earth blocks the sun just before a lunar sunset ushers in  frigid lunar night  on March 16.

Eric Lagatta covers breaking and trending news for USA TODAY. Reach him at elagatta@gannett.com

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: NASA preps for moon launch: What to know about water-hunting mission