Intuitive Machines Inc., which made history with its moon landing last year, blasted off Wednesday on a second mission that aims to find resources and test cellular technology on the lunar surface.

The lander, called Athena, lifted off at 7:17 p.m. local time from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on board a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The craft is expected to attempt its moon landing in approximately eight days.

The launch comes about a year after the Texas-based startup co-founded by Kam Ghaffarian put the first American-made lander on the moon since 1972. It was also the first private spacecraft to ever reach the lunar surface intact.

Intuitive Machines’ first moon mission yielded mixed results. While the lander Odysseus successfully touched down on the moon, a bumpy descent to the surface caused the vehicle to tip over, prematurely lose power and shut down.

A key objective of the company’s second mission to the moon is to deploy a piece of NASA technology that can probe beneath the lunar surface to detect resources like water and carbon dioxide.

If successful, Athena will land about 100 miles from the Moon’s south pole, closer to the pole than ever attempted by another lander. The moon’s south pole is thought to contain water ice and rare-earth elements, resources seen as crucial for further human space exploration and infrastructure development.

In a busy time for lunar exploration, Athena will join two other commercial landers currently on their way to the moon, Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander and Ispace’s Hakuto-R lander.

Intuitive Machines will also be deploying the first cellular network on the moon in partnership with Finnish telecommunications company Nokia Oyj.

Upon landing, a hopper and a lunar rover, which are equipped with technology similar to a smartphone, will be deployed and connected to Athena’s cellular network as they explore the shadowed craters of the moon.

The lander is also connected to mission control on Earth, which allows for high-definition video streaming and command-and-control communications.

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