A moon lander built by Houston-based company Intuitive Machines reached lunar orbit on Wednesday, headed for an attempt at the first U.S. touchdown on Earth's nearest celestial neighbor in more than 50 years, and the first ever by a private spacecraft. The six-legged Nova-C lander, dubbed Odysseus, entered a circular orbit 57 miles (92 km) above the lunar surface after firing its main rocket thruster for nearly seven minutes in an orbital insertion maneuver, the company said in an online statement. Assuming all goes according to plan, the robot spacecraft is expected to gradually lower its orbit over the next 24 hours and land at crater Malapert A near the moon's south pole at 5:49 p.m. EST (2249 GMT) on Thursday, carrying a suite of NASA science instruments and technology demonstrations.
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