Two private lunar landers from the United States and Japan have successfully launched towards the Moon aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The rocket lifted off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 01:09 local time on Wednesday, carrying landers developed by Firefly Aerospace and ispace.
Upon reaching lunar orbit, the landers will separate and embark on their own exploratory missions, contributing to an increasing wave of commercial lunar endeavors.
Firefly’s Blue Space rover is projected to take approximately 45 days to arrive at the Moon after detaching from the rocket. It plans to conduct drilling, sample collection, and X-ray imaging of Earth’s magnetic field, aiming to enhance research for future human lunar missions and understand the effects of space weather on Earth.
Meanwhile, ispace’s Resilience lander is expected to reach the Moon’s surface in up to five months, where it will deploy a rover for exploration and aim to gather loose surface material known as regolith.
NASA is supporting this venture, which stands to become its most significant commercial payload delivery to the Moon to date. Last year, Intuitive Machines made history by becoming the first commercial entity to successfully land on the Moon, a milestone previously achieved only by government space agencies from the US, Soviet Union, China, India, and Japan.
In addition, SpaceX is preparing for the seventh orbital flight test of its Starship rocket, scheduled to launch from Texas at 16:00 local time.
