A robotic lander built by a private company was bound for the moon on Monday in an attempt to make the first U.S. lunar soft landing in more than half a century, after launching into space aboard a new Vulcan rocket debuted by a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

Space robotics firm Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander launched at 2:18 a.m. EST from Cape Canaveral, Florida on the first flight of Vulcan, a powerful rocket that had been under development for a decade by the Boeing-Lockheed venture United Launch Alliance (ULA).

“Yee haw, I am so thrilled,” ULA CEO Tory Bruno said in the company’s launch control room. “This has been years of hard work. So far this has been an absolutely beautiful mission.”

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If all goes well, Peregrine would mark the first U.S. soft landing on the moon since the final Apollo landing in 1972, and the first-ever lunar landing by a private company – a feat that has proved elusive in recent years.

Continue here: Reuters