The search for water on the moon is about to take a massive leap into new territory as NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer orbiter and the latest Intuitive Machines lunar lander get ready to launch. These missions — riding together on the same SpaceX Falcon9 rocket — both aim to answer key questions about the presence of water on the moon, which has become a top priority in space exploration.
The launch is scheduled for the evening of the Feb. 26, 2025 at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. While the Lunar Trailblazer will continually orbit the moon as it charts sources of water from afar, the Intuitive Machines lander (named “Athena”) will touch down on the moon’s south pole and deploy an instrument to drill through the surface and measure water ice and gases.
Mapping Water on the Moon
Following its launch, the Lunar Trailblazer — which is a small satellite — will take a path assisted by the gravity of Earth, the moon, and the sun, called a “low-energy transfer.” Four to seven months later, it will enter the moon’s orbit and spend the next two years scanning the lunar landscape for signs of water.
The satellite will use two instruments to make measurements: the High-resolution Volatiles and Minerals Moon Mapper (HVM3) and the Lunar Thermal Mapper (LTM). The HVM3 instrument, a shortwave infrared imaging spectrometer, will determine the form, abundance, and locations of water on the moon’s surface by detecting wavelengths of reflected sunlight. Meanwhile, LTM, a mid-infrared imager, will measure the moon’s surface temperature in the same regions HVM3 is concentrated on.
The collaborative effort of the two instruments will generate detailed maps during different times of the day, which could reveal potential changes in the amount of water from day to night. Scientists hope to use this information to better understand how the lunar water cycle works in an airless environment.
Drilling for Answers
Taking a different trajectory, the IM-2 mission is expected to land on the lunar south pole around March 6 after spending approximately one week in transit to the moon, according to NASA.
As part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, IM-2 will carry several technologies to conduct tests on the moon. The most prominent of these payloads is PRIME-1, a NASA investigation with two instruments that will aid the search for water: TRIDENT (The Regolith and Ice Drill for Exploring New Terrain), a drill that can extract lunar soil, and MSOLO, a mass spectrometer that will examine the soil samples for water ice.
Read More: Reconsidering the Origins of Water Found on the Moon
Why Is Lunar Water So Important?
The pursuit of water on the moon has accelerated ever since water molecules were discovered in lunar soil by the Indian Space Research Organization’s Chandrayaan-1 probe in 2008. In the following years, space agencies raced to uncover additional evidence of lunar water, which comes in the form of water ice embedded within the soil.
Water ice is thought to primarily occur in the permanently shadowed polar regions of the Moon, but in 2020, water molecules were detected in a sunlit portion of the Moon by the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), a joint project between NASA and the German Aerospace Center.
Scientists have sought to understand what exactly caused the existence of water ice on the moon. Multiple theories have been raised, from comet impacts to solar wind interacting with the moon to produce hydrogen atoms that combine with existing oxygen atoms under the lunar surface.
This mystery hasn’t been solved quite yet, but the Lunar Trailblazer and IM-2 missions may bring scientists one step closer to the answers they’re chasing. The outcome of the missions could also spark hope for future space missions, as the presence of lunar water ice may eventually translate to drinking water, breathable air, and fuel for astronauts.
Read More: The Water on the Moon May Trace Back to Early Earth — and Comets
Article Sources
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Jack Knudson is an assistant editor at Discover with a strong interest in environmental science and history. Before joining Discover in 2023, he studied journalism at the Scripps College of Communication at Ohio University and previously interned at Recycling Today magazine.
