Intuitive Machines' lunar lander set to launch today: How to watch
The next lunar lander to make its way to the moon is set to begin its voyage Wednesday night with a launch from Florida's Space Coast.
The spacecraft, built and operated by Intuitive Machines, is the second vehicle the Houston, Texas-based space exploration company will deploy to the moon on behalf of NASA. The U.S. space agency, the primary customer on the mission, is paying for the delivery of a number of scientific instruments that will hunt for water under the lunar surface.
NASA 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. NASA envisions the moon as being a crucial pit stop to prepare U.S. astronauts and their vehicles to travel onward to Mars.
The vehicle, named Athena, is targeting a landing late next week on the moon's south pole, where NASA has long said water ice is thought to be abundant. The resource, once uncovered, could one day be extracted and used for drinking, breathing and as a source of hydrogen and oxygen for rocket fuel to make future expeditions to Mars possible, according to NASA.
Here's how to watch the launch of the mission, known as IM-2, and what to know about its future lunar landing:
When will the IM-2 mission launch from Florida?
The Athena lander will get off the ground as early as Wednesday night from NASA's Kennedy Space Center on the historic launch pad 39A – the site of the space agency's Apollo moon mission launches.
Intuitive Machines' vehicle will hitch a ride aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, which will propel it into orbit before it separates and continues making its own way to the moon.
The 32-minute launch window opens at 7:02 p.m., with a target liftoff at 7:17 p.m., according to the Kennedy Space Center.
After the launch, Athena will spend approximately one week in transit to the moon before attempting to land Thursday, March 6 on the lunar surface. 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.
How to watch, follow Athena lunar lander launch on SpaceX rocket
Launch coverage will begin on NASA+, the space agency's new streaming service, about 45 minutes before liftoff.
A full schedule of streaming coverage can be found here.
NASA will also provide ongoing updates on the mission through its Artemis blog.
What to know about Intuitive Machines' next moon mission for NASA
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 States' return to the moon for the first time in more than five decades since NASA's Apollo era came to an end.
Athena 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 as early as Sunday morning.
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.
Eric Lagatta covers breaking and trending news for Paste BN. Reach him at elagatta@gannett.com