Private U.S. moon lander launched from Florida

A moon lander built by Houston-based aerospace company Intuitive Machines was launched from Florida early on Thursday on a mission to conduct the first U.S. lunar touchdown in more than a half century and the first by a privately owned spacecraft.

The company's Nova-C lander, dubbed Odysseus, lifted off shortly after 1 a.m. EST atop a Falcon 9 rocket flown by Elon Musk' SpaceX from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral.