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NASA scientists are set to launch a rocket that will study patterns of dust on the moon's surface.

NASA hopes to unravel more of the moon's mysteries by launching an unmanned mission to study its atmosphere, the US space agency's third such probe in five years.

The Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) is to launch at 1.27pm on Saturday (AEST) aboard a Minotaur V rocket a converted peacekeeping missile from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.

Since US astronauts last walked on the moon four decades ago, rocket scientists have learned that there is more to the moon than just a dusty, desolate terrain.

Recent NASA robotic missions such as the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter have returned troves of images detailing the moon's cratered surface, while NASA's Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) revealed how being pummelled by asteroids resulted in the moon's uneven patches of gravity.

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A previous NASA satellite, the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) discovered water ice when it impacted in 2009, the space agency said.

"When we left the moon we thought of it as an atmosphere-less ancient surface," said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA's science mission directorate.

"We have discovered that the moon scientifically is very much alive, it is still evolving and in fact has a kind of atmosphere."

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NASA to return to moon's surface

NASA is poised to return to the moon.

An unmanned rocket is scheduled to blast off late Friday night (11:27 p.m. EDT) from Virginia's Eastern Shore with a robotic explorer that will study the lunar atmosphere and dust. Called LADEE (LA'-dee), the moon-orbiting craft will measure the thin lunar atmosphere.

Scientists want to learn the composition of the moon's ever-so-delicate atmosphere and how it might change over time. Another puzzle: whether dust actually levitates from the lunar surface.

Unlike the quick three-day Apollo flights to the moon, the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer, or LADEE, will take a full month to get there. An Air Force Minotaur rocket, built by Orbital Sciences Corp., is providing the ride from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility.

It's the first moonshot from Virginia. All but one of NASA's approximately 40 moon missions, including the manned Apollo flights of the late 1960s and early 1970s, originated from Cape Canaveral, Fla. The most recent were the twin Grail spacecraft launched two years ago. The lone exception, Clementine, a military-NASA venture, rocketed away from Southern California in 1994.

The soaring Minotaur rocket should be visible along much of the East Coast -- as far south as South Carolina, as far north as Maine and as far west as Pittsburgh.

The $280 million mission will last six months and end with a suicide plunge into the moon for LADEE, which is about the size of a small car.

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NASA set to explore moon's mysterious glow with LADEE mission

The launch of LADEE, NASA's new lunar exploration mission, will take place at 11:27 p.m. ET from the agency's new Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.

NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer will orbit the Moon to gather information on its atmosphere and surface conditions. It launches from Wallops Island, Va., at 11:27 p.m. ET.

If the typical bevy of Friday night activities seems just too boring to bear, try out a rocket launch instead.

At roughly 11:27 p.m. ET, NASA will launch its Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) onboard an Orbital-made Minotaur V rocket. The launch is the first to take place at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Va., and will be visible to a wide array of East Coast onlookers lucky enough to catch a patch of clear sky.

For those not on the East Coast -- or anyone looking for a front row ticket to the rocket launch itself -- NASA TV will broadcast the event live starting at 9:30 p.m. ET.

The goal of the $280 million mission, pronounced "laddie," is to investigate unknowns surrounding the moon's atmosphere that were brought up by NASA's Surveyor 7 mission in 1968. Back then, unexplainable "streamers" of light were noticed on the horizon of the Earth's natural satellite before sunrise.

Scientists posit that the mysterious moondust is tied to the moon's atmosphere and its interactions with the surface environment, but they've been unable to study the phenomenon thoroughly in the nearly 50 years since the Surveyor 7 mission.

The moon's boundary surface exosphere, as it's called, has been left relatively undisturbed thanks to a low number of probe landings of late. That portion of atmosphere -- which the Earth has, but which is out of reach beyond the orbit of the International Space Station -- also happens to be the most common type of atmosphere in our solar system, explains Space.com's Miriam Kramer. It exists around Mercury, as well as other large moons and asteroids. That makes Earth's moon ripe for types of data collection that could open up new understandings into other planetary bodies and their atmospheres.

The LADEE launch marks Virginia-based Orbital's first rocket launch carrying a payload destined for a spot beyond a low-Earth orbit. The company has produced a series of guidelines for viewing, including the map below.

Also check out its annotated series of Google Earth screenshots outlining the path of the rocket and its potential visibility at different points on the East Coast in and around Virginia and Washington, DC.

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NASA rocket launch to the moon visible to East Coast tonight