First US moon lander since Apollo prepares to blast off on Monday

A computer illustration of the Peregrine lunar lander, the first mission to fly under Nasa’s commercial lunar payload services initiative. Photograph: Astrobotic Technology/AP

Final preparations are under way at Cape Canaveral in Florida for a milestone mission to put a US lander on the moon, an achievement not seen in more than 50 years since the end of the Apollo project.

Last-minute glitches aside, Peregrine mission one, named after the fastest animal on Earth, will roar into the sky at 7.18am UK time Monday. After looping around the planet, it will head to the moon and slip into lunar orbit before an attempted landing soon after local sunrise on 23 February.