SpaceX has just initiated another mission to the moon.

      SpaceX successfully launched Intuitive Machines' Athena lander to the moon as part of the IM-2 mission. The Athena lander is set to arrive on the lunar surface on Thursday, March 6. A Falcon 9 rocket carrying the uncrewed lander lifted off from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 7:16 p.m. ET on Wednesday, February 26.

      Approximately eight minutes after launch, SpaceX successfully returned the Falcon 9's first stage, landing it on a droneship off the Florida coast. This marked the ninth flight of the Falcon 9 first-stage booster, which has previously supported missions such as Crew-8, Polaris Dawn, CRS-31, Astranis: From One to Many, and four Starlink missions.

      The launch signifies that three separate missions are currently on their way to the moon, setting a new record for simultaneous lunar endeavors. The other missions include Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost, which launched on January 15 and is expected to reach the lunar surface on March 2, and Japan’s ispace mission, Resilience, which also launched on January 15 but is taking a longer trajectory and is projected to reach the moon in May.

      IM-2’s Athena lander is embarking on an eight-day journey toward the moon’s South Pole, with the goal of demonstrating lunar mobility, resource prospecting, and analyzing volatile materials from below the surface. Intuitive Machines has described this mission as “a critical step toward discovering water sources beyond Earth — essential for establishing sustainable infrastructure both on the lunar surface and in space.”

      This mission is the second lunar endeavor from Texas-based Intuitive Machines, following its first mission, which launched on February 15, 2024, and successfully landed on February 22. Although the lander made a soft landing slightly off-target and at an angle, it managed to deploy its payloads and conduct lunar operations for 144 hours. IM-1 was notable for being the first U.S. soft lunar landing since Apollo 17 in 1972.

      In other news, activity at SpaceX’s Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, indicates rapid progress toward the eighth flight test of its Starship rocket, which consists of the Super Heavy booster and the upper-stage Starship spacecraft. Recently, SpaceX released two sets of images showcasing the Super Heavy booster being transported to the launchpad.

      Following the seventh test flight of the Starship rocket on Thursday, the upper-stage uncrewed spacecraft exploded shortly after detaching from the Super Heavy booster. Social media was quick to share footage of debris falling over the Caribbean, leading SpaceX CEO Elon Musk to remark that "entertainment is guaranteed" with each Starship launch.

      During the seventh test, while the first-stage Super Heavy booster successfully landed, the upper-stage Starship experienced what SpaceX refers to as a “rapid unscheduled disassembly” after stage separation. Shortly after, videos appeared online showing parts of the uncrewed Starship descending near the Turks and Caicos Islands, roughly 1,600 miles (2,600 km) east of the Boca Chica launch site. Musk reposted a clip, indicating that "Success is uncertain, but entertainment is guaranteed!" However, reports surfaced that the FAA had to reroute several flights in the vicinity to avoid the falling debris. It's still unclear whether any of it reached land or if all of it fell into the ocean.