The next launch from Cape Canaveral is scheduled for February 26th, featuring a SpaceX Falcon 9 carrying Intuitive Machines' second lunar lander. A bright and cold Friday morning saw a SpaceX rocket lift off on the latest Starlink mission.

Photographers record images of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with Intuitive Machines' second lunar lander as lifts off from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla.,

SpaceX will try to launch an Intuitive Machines lunar lander this evening. Eight days later, Intuitive Machines will attempt to land its Nova-C lander, named Athena, on the moon. NASA paid Intuitive Machines nearly $50 million for this mission.

A privately owned lunar lander touched down on the moon Thursday, but as the minutes dragged on, flight controllers could not confirm its condition or whether it was even upright near the south pole.

IM-2 is part of a new wave of private lunar exploration. For example, Firefly Aerospace successfully put its Blue Ghost lander down in the Mare Crisium ("Sea of Crises") region of the moon's northern hemisphere just this past Sunday (March 2).

The moon lander Athena made it to the lunar surface, but its condition was unclear as mission controllers rushed to understand its status.

Athena is scheduled for touchdown on Thursday at 12:32 p.m. ET and hopes to succeed where its predecessor faltered.

Intuitive Machines launches its second moon lander, which will use NASA and commercially developed tools to search for ice in the moon's crust.

Intuitive Machines second NASA-backed lunar lander mission will deliver scientific instruments to hunt for water under the moon's surface.

SpaceX Falcon 9 launched Athena and Lunar Trailblazer to advance lunar water ice exploration and future missions.

Intuitive Machines said on Thursday that its robotic Athena lander has landed on the moon's surface but details of the spacecraft's status and