Lunar lander Athena is packed and ready to explore the moon: Here’s what on board

In February 2024, an American spacecraft landed on the moon for the first time in more than 50 years and ushered in a new era of lunar exploration defined by commercial enterprise.

The landing captured the attention of the American people, whose fascination with lunar landings harkens back to the days of NASA's Apollo missions of the 1960s and '70s.

In the days ahead, plenty of eyes will be on the same company that manufactured that historic spacecraft as it attempts to send its successor back to the moon. The launch of Intuitive Machines' Athena spacecraft, which could happen as early as Wednesday, and impending landing is sure to draw plenty of headlines and news coverage.

But it's after the craft has touched down on its IM-2 mission and much of the hoopla has faded away that the real work begins.

Hitching a ride aboard the lunar lander is a fleet of technology that NASA and other private companies paid to have delivered to the moon's south pole. During about 10 days of operations, those scientific instruments will do everything from hunting for water beneath the surface to testing high-speed, long-range communications systems.

NASA and those companies will need to work fast, though. Once the sun sets on the lunar south pole and frigid temperatures take hold, it won't be long until Athena is rendered inoperable.

The work ahead is vital, according to NASA, which aims under its Artemis program to use a slate of uncrewed lunar missions like IM-2 to lay the foundation for the first ever lunar settlement when humans return as early as 2027. Ahead of those crewed lunar landings? America's next giant leap: sending the first astronauts to Mars.

Here's a look at just five of the scientific instruments that will be aboard the lander, as well as one crucial NASA spacecraft joining the launch on its own seperate lunar mission.

Moon landing mission: Intuitive Machines to launch 2nd lunar lander for NASA

Intuitive Machines' Micro Nova Hopper

A small propulsive drone known as the Micro Nova Hopper will be able to explore a wider swath of the lunar south pole than the Athena lander can on its own.

Manufactured by Intuitive Machines, the hopper is named Grace after Grace Hopper, a pioneer in mathematics and programming who worked on some of the earliest computers.

Grace, which is more than three feet tall, can carry about 22 pounds of cargo while exploring more than 15 miles from the landing site. The diminutive vehicle is designed to hop into and out of permanently shadowed regions, providing detailed surface imagery and data on the moon's many craters.

One of Grace's hops is expected to be into a small crater about a quarter-mile from the landing site, which would mark the first time that an area where the sun has never shone has been explored, according to Intuitive Machines.

NASA’s PRIME-1 drill, spectrometer

NASA, the primary customer for the lunar mission, is poised to deploy water-hunting technology that will drill beneath the moon's surface and extract lunar soil – known as regolith – for testing.

That dual instrument, known as Prime-1 (Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment,) will drill down about three feet below the lunar surface before its mass spectrometer will analyze the excavated material to detect and measure the potential presence of gases and accessible resources.

NASA has long 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.

“Human exploration of the Moon and deep space will depend on making good use of local resources to produce life-sustaining supplies necessary to live and work on another planetary body,” Jackie Quinn, PRIME-1 project manager at the Kennedy Space Center, said in a statement.

Lunar Outpost's MAPP rover

The first ever commercial rover to land on the moon, manufactured by a Colorado company named Lunar Outpost, is set to explore the lunar terrain.

Operating without GPS, the MAPP rover (Mobile Autonomous Prospecting Platform) uses visual cues and sensors to autonomously navigate and avoid hazards.

Sitting atop the rover will be a device known as the AstroAnt, a miniature robot no bigger than a matchbox developed by MIT Media Lab in collaboration with Castrol. AstroAnt is designed to inspect external surfaces of spacecraft, and will also collect thermal data and measurements while the rover explores.

Nokia's lunar surface 4G/LTE network

Nokia's payload will set out to prove that the same technology connecting billions of smartphones on Earth can meet communications needs during missions to the moon and Mars.

The company's Lunar Surface Communications System will use its 4G/LTE network to connect Athena with two other vehicles on the mission, allowing for data transfer and communication.

While it's similar to cellular networks on Earth, Nokia reconfigured the system to operate under the harsh lunar conditions. Testing Nokia’s cellular network will reveal whether it is yet up to the task of facilitating voice, video and data communications for future crewed and uncrewed missions.

NASA's laser Retroreflector array

An instrument known as a laser retroreflector array (LRA) on the top deck of the lander will be able to bounce laser light back at any orbiting or incoming spacecraft – a vital capability to determine the locations of lunar landers more accurately.

Designed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, the devices are made up of a collection of mirrors that are used for measuring distance and reflecting light in such a way as to allow orbiting spacecraft to determine a previous lander's precise location on the moon's surface.

Once enough of them have been delivered and deployed on the moon, NASA should be able to light up a potential base camp to serve as a landmark for future arriving crewed landers.

NASA's Lunar Trailblazer

NASA's Lunar Trailblazer is one of three spacecraft sharing a ride to space with Athena on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

About 48 minutes after launch, the orbiter will seperate from the rocket to continue on its own independent voyage to the moon. Once it reaches lunar orbit, the small satellite – about the size of a dishwasher – will spend several months performing flybys and thruster burst to position itself to map the distribution of the different forms of water on the moon's surface.

Discoveries made during its two-year mission will include where the moon's water is located, what form it is in and how it changes over time. The observations will contribute to producing the best-yet maps of water on the lunar surface, according to NASA.

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