A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carried the Lunar Trailblazer orbiter from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral. Built by Lockheed Martins space division, the satellite was a secondary payload on the rocket, which primarily carried a lunar lander mission led by Intuitive Machines.

Although the moon is often considered dry, previous findings have detected traces of water, even in sunlit areas. Scientists believe significant amounts of ice may exist in the frigid, permanently shadowed regions at the lunar poles.

Weighing approximately 440 pounds (200 kg) and measuring 11.5 feet (3.5 meters) wide with fully deployed solar panels, the Lunar Trailblazer is designed to locate and map water deposits. The data it gathers will help determine the form, distribution, and abundance of water, providing insight into the lunar water cycle.

The spacecraft will conduct a series of flybys and looping orbits over several months before settling into an orbit about 60 miles (100 km) above the moon. From there, it will capture high-resolution images to assess potential water sources.

"We see tiny amounts of water on sunlit portions of the moon, which is mysterious," said planetary scientist Bethany Ehlmann, the mission’s principal investigator and director of Caltechs Keck Institute for Space Studies. She added, "The most interesting (aspect) for many is the potentially large amounts of ice in the permanently shadowed regions of the lunar poles. Lunar Trailblazer will peer inside to see how much is at the surface."

These locations could serve as valuable resources for future lunar explorers. "Understanding where a rover would drive or an astronaut would walk to examine deposits for science and future resource use will benefit all future landed missions," Ehlmann said.

The satellite carries two key instruments to analyze the lunar surface:

• The Lunar Thermal Mapper (LTM) will track surface temperatures.
• The High-resolution Volatiles and Minerals Moon Mapper (HVM3) will detect water by analyzing the light reflected from the surface.

"We believe that the movement of water on the moon is likely driven by the surface temperature," explained Tristram Warren, a planetary scientist at the University of Oxford who helped develop the LTM instrument. "By measuring the presence and amount of water via the HVM3 instrument and the surface temperature via the LTM instrument, we can better understand this relationship."

Scientists suggest that lunar water may originate from various sources. One possibility is that solar wind made up of charged particles from the sun, reacts with lunar minerals to produce water. Another theory is that comets and meteorites have deposited water over billions of years. While the exact quantity of lunar water remains uncertain, estimates suggest there could be hundreds of millions of tons.

"Other than for human exploration, lunar water is also scientifically very exciting," Warren noted. "The moon has been orbiting near the Earth almost since the formation of Earth itself. So, understanding the origin of the lunar water might help us to understand the origin of water on Earth."