Space exploration company Intuitive Machines Inc. LUNR is gearing up for its second moon landing attempt on Wednesday, with the anticipation sending its stock higher in after-hours trading. 

What happened: The Houston-based firm, which made history last year by becoming the first private company to touchdown on the moon, prepares to land its Nova-C lunar lander near the lunar south pole.

Interestingly, the lunar lander, part of Intuitive Machines' historic expedition last year, has an old connection with Dogecoin DOGE/USD, the world's largest meme cryptocurrency.

DOGE-1 was a satellite mission by Elon Musk's space company, Space X, paid for entirely with the meme coin. 

The satellite was supposed to go as a rideshare on the Nova-C/IM-1 mission, with Intuitive Machines talking about "taking Dogecoin to the Moon" in a post dated May 11, 2021.

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As things turned out, the satellite missed the planned rideshare with the IM-1 mission and was subsequently postponed. Regardless, the association produced significant hype for both the company and Dogecoin. 

Intuitive Machines went public in February 2023. So, if you had invested $1000 in both the company's stock and the meme coin exactly two years ago, Dogecoin would have netted you a return of 158%, while the LUNR stock would have trimmed your investment by 35.83%.

Price Action: Shares of LUNR surged 6.30% in after-hours trading, after closing 9.25% lower at $15.40 during Tuesday's regular session, according to data from Benzinga Pro. The stock has a consensus price target of $15.83 based on 6 analyst ratings. 

As of this writing, Dogecoin traded at $0.2101, up 2.84% in the last 24 hours. 

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