The Nasa TV stream, which will show the Odysseus spacecraft's attempt at landing on the Moon, has begun in the last few minutes.

Admittedly, not much is happening yet, aside from a Nasa representative and someone from Intuitive Machines giving some detail about the mission.

They say the spacecraft's "autonomous" landing sequence will soon get under way - while a timer counting down to the big moment continues to tick down. The land time is currently predicted to be around 17:24 CST (23:24 GMT).

Intuitive Machines - a private company - has been contracted by the US space agency to carry six scientific instruments on board that will help study the Moon's surface.

Rebecca Morelle
Science editor

Nasa has shortlisted 13 locations around the south pole where it might send astronauts later this decade, as part of its Artemis programme.

The first landing of a crew will be no earlier than 2026. To facilitate the return, the agency has also initiated the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) programme.

This sees Nasa pay various private American companies for transport services to the Moon - in this particular case, with a fee to Intuitive Machines of $118m (£93m).

The agency essentially hitches a ride on a commercial robotic mission for its scientific instruments.

The hope is the companies can then develop a sustainable business model by selling additional payload space to anyone else who wants to purchase it.

Rebecca Morelle
Science editor

Intuitive Machine's target is at 80 degrees South, a mere 300km from the south pole proper.

If the mission gets down safely it will be the southernmost landing yet executed.

The Indian space agency currently holds this record, thanks to its historic Chandrayaan-3 Vikram lander, which settled on the lunar terrain in August last year at 69 degrees South.

The south pole, generally speaking, is very rough terrain with big mountain ranges and deep craters.

But that's part of its attraction.

Some of those craters have areas that are permanently shadowed - they never see direct sunlight.

This means they could retain water-ice reserves, which might be useful to future human explorers - for drinking, for sanitation and to make rocket fuel.

Jonathan Amos
Science correspondent

If Intuitive Machines fails to land successfully it can console itself with the thought that it has already received contracts from Nasa for two further missions this year.

But everyone will be hoping IM nails this first effort. It was a bold decision by the US space agency to put its faith in young private companies to lead its robotic return to the lunar surface.

In doing so, it accepted a level of risk it wouldn't have done if operating missions itself from beginning to end.

Officials have used a football analogy: if you take several shots on goal, at some point you'll find the back of the net... and going into 2024, there were going to be six scheduled attempts on goal. Odysseus is the second.

If, after Astrobotic's failure last month, IM also misses the target, does Nasa begin to wonder whether its bold decision was the right one?

Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson has been talking to the BBC’s Americast podcast about the role of private enterprises in space missions.

“We’re all making a big deal of this,” he says, “but space has been waiting for us.”

He says Intuitive Machines' mission is a “hotbed of interest” because it's targeting the south pole of the moon and there might be water deposited within the bottoms of craters.

Looking ahead to future missions, Tyson says geopolitical rivalry will continue in space - and suggests the US will be under pressure to compete with China.

He also casts doubt on some companies' desire to be the first in space: “Elon[Musk] says he wants to put a million people on Mars in a few decades? Is there a business case for that? I don't know of one."

Jonathan Amos
Science correspondent

Intuitive Machine's 675kg Odysseus lander is about the size of an old British telephone box.

It was despatched from Earth on 14 February and was captured into orbit around the Moon on Wednesday this week.

Controllers will monitor the spacecraft's descent at the company HQ in Houston but it will be Odysseus itself that will be taking the key decisions on approach.

Initially at 100km altitude, Odysseus will use its guidance system to bring itself to a point roughly 30km above the designated landing site and then drop straight down.

The big engine onboard is expected to slow the descent to just one-metre-per-second at the moment of landing.

Rebecca Morelle
Science editor

So, what's riding on Odysseus? Nasa's six payloads have a range of objectives.

There are novel technologies to aid precise navigation and to know exactly how much propellant is available to a spacecraft's thrusters.

There will also be investigations of lunar dust, which the Apollo astronauts found to be a serious nuisance, scratching and clogging their equipment.

The agency's scientists want to understand better how the dust lifts off to hang just above the surface before then settling back down.

The six commercial payloads include a student camera system from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University which will be deployed from Odysseus when it is still 30m above the lunar surface. The camera will try to take selfie images as the spacecraft touches down.

The American artist Jeff Koons has also attached a box to the side of the lander that contains 125 small stainless steel balls to represent the Moon's different phases through a month.

Image source, Reuters

Jonathan Amos
Science correspondent

As ever, this will be a challenging endeavour. Just this year we've seen mixed outcomes for robot missions to the Moon. In January, the US company Astrobotic despatched its Peregrine mission but couldn't even attempt a landing after developing a propulsion fault.

The Japanese space agency (Jaxa) had better fortune at the end of the month, reaching the surface safely on 19 January, although it lost several days of operations because its solar array was pointing away from the Sun.

Statistically, it's proven very hard to land safely on Earth's natural satellite. Only about a half of all attempts have succeeded. This is true not just of the“old era” of Moon exploration in the 1960s-70s, but of the modern era, too.

If you consider just those soft-landing attempts this century, starting with China's Chang’e-3 mission in 2013, we’re currently five from 11.

• US: Odysseus - ?
• Japan: Slim - 2024 - Success
• US: Peregrine - 2024 - Failure
• Russia: Luna 25 - 2023 - Failure
• India: Chandrayaan-3 - 2023 - Success
• Japan: Hakuto-R - 2022 - Failure
• Japan: Omotenashi - 2022 Failure
• China: Chang'e 5 - 2020 - Success
• India: Chandrayaan-2 - 2019 - Failure
• Israel: Beresheet - 2019 - Failure
• China: Chang'e 4 - 2018 - Success
• China: Chang'e 3 - 2013 - Success

Alex Therrien
Live reporter

A US firm is attempting to make history today by being the first private company to successfully land a spacecraft on the Moon.

The spacecraft, nicknamed Odysseus, is hoping to land near the Moon's south pole at 23:24 GMT (18:24 EST). The unmanned lunar lander was built by US company Intuitive Machines and took off from Cape Canaveral in Florida last week.

It is the second commercial mission to be funded by the US space agency Nasa, as it seeks to encourage private missions to the Moon in an attempt to expand its reach in space.

The craft launched on top of a Falcon 9 rocket made by Elon Musk's SpaceX company last Thursday, and has since been making the 384,400km(238,855 mile) journey through space.

If all goes to plan, it will also be the first American mission in 51 years to complete a soft touchdown on the Moon.

We’ll be bringing you live updates and analysis here.