The Athena lander, built by Texas-based company Intuitive Machines, descended to the lunar surface but the orientation of the lander is currently unknown.

The mission comes four days after another commercial space company, Firefly Aerospace, successfully landed its spacecraft on the moon.

Intuitive Machines said on Thursday that its robotic Athena lander has landed on the moon's surface but details of the spacecraft's status and health remained unclear, a tense moment in the company's second such attempt.