Private lunar lander achieves successful orbit ahead of Thursday touchdown attempt

ORLANDO, Fla. — A commercial company’s lunar lander launched from Kennedy Space Center last week successfully made it into the moon’s orbit on Wednesday ahead of its Thursday attempt to stick the landing.

Houston-based Intuitive Machines posted on social media that its Nova-C lander named Odysseus, which blasted off from KSC on Feb. 15 atop a SpaceX Falcon 9, had performed a 408-second main engine burn that put it into a successful lunar orbit of an altitude of about 57 miles.