Watch a Falcon 9 rocket fire its engines Tuesday at pad 39A

An Israeli-built spacecraft financed through donations from billionaire philanthropists is set to make history Thursday when it tries to become the first privately-funded probe to land on the moon.

The mission, dubbed NG-20, marks the first of three planned flights of Cygnus aboard a Falcon 9 rocket. Liftoff occurred at 12:07 p.m. EST (1707 UTC).

SpaceX hopes to resume launches in November as the company continues its investigation into a Sept. 1 launch pad explosion to determine whether the accident originated on the Falcon 9 rocket or ground systems, officials said Tuesday.