South Korea's first lunar orbiter, Danuri, is smoothly carrying out its goal of achieving lunar orbit.

The Korea Aerospace Research Institute(KARI) said on Saturday that it decided to skip Danuri’s third lunar orbit insertion(LOI) maneuver to enter the moon's orbit that was scheduled for last Friday.

The institute said it reached the decision after an analysis of the first two LOIs found that there was little error in the complex maneuver that involves lowering the speed of the spacecraft while committing it to the gravity of the moon in order to achieve a lunar orbit altitude of 100 kilometers.

Danuri successfully completed its first LOI on December 17 and its second last Wednesday.

The remaining LOI maneuvers are scheduled for Monday and Wednesday, which KARI said could be integrated into a single maneuver.

Whether Danuri has successfully settled into orbit is expected to be confirmed on Thursday.

Once it has successfully entered the moon's orbit, Danuri will embark on a yearlong mission to collect lunar surface data from January.