A live stream of the event, cohosted by NASA and Intuitive Machines, is set to begin about an hour before landing. If successful, the 15-foot-tall (4.6-meter-tall) Athena will join a lunar lander developed by another Texas-based company — Firefly Aerospace of Austin suburb Cedar Park — on the surface of the moon.

Intuitive Machines sent final commands to its uncrewed Athena spacecraft on Thursday as it closed in on a landing spot near the moon's south pole, the company's second attempt to score a clean touchdown after making a lopsided landing last year.