A US private Moon lander has successfully launched 24 hours after its flight was delayed due to fuel issues.
The Nova-C Odysseus lander, built by Texas-based space flight company Intuitive Machines (IM), could become the first private mission - called IM-1 - to land intact on the lunar surface.
The Moon lander lifted off at 6.05am UK time on Thursday on a Falcon 9 rocket flown by Elon Musk’s SpaceX from Cape Canaveral in Florida, SpaceX posted on X, formerly Twitter.
A touchdown attempt is set to occur on February 22, after a day in lunar orbit.
Intuitive Machines' co-founder and chief executive Steve Altemus said, “there have been a lot of sleepless nights getting ready for this" in the minutes before lift-off.
Only five countries — the US, Russia, China, India and Japan — have managed a lunar landing and no private business has yet done so.
The company's vice president of lunar access Trent Martin was responsible for the countdown as the launch went off on time.
He said: "Godspeed, Odysseus. Now let's go make history."
Applause could be heard from the control room as the spacecraft achieved second-stage engine cutoff.
The Houston-based company aims to put its 14-foot tall, six-legged lander down just 186 miles shy of the moon's south pole, equivalent to landing within Antarctica on Earth.
This region, full of craters and cliffs, and potentially rich with frozen water, is where Nasa plans to land astronauts later this decade.
The successful launch comes one month after another US spacecraft, Peregrine, failed to touch down following a fuel leak.
The failure of Peregrine, operated by US company Astrobotic, marked the third time a private company had been unable to achieve a soft landing on the lunar surface.
The Beresheet lander, built by Israel's SpaceIL, crashed during descent in 2019, while the Hakuto-R M1 lander, from Japanese company ispace, was destroyed while attempting to land in April last year.
Odysseus would be the first US Moon landing since the final mission of the Apollo programme - Apollo 17 - more than 50 years ago.
