Two lunar landers built by private companies in the US and Japan left Earth aboard a SpaceX rocket as part of a joint drive to the moon.
Falcon 9 lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 01:09 local time (0609 GMT) on Wednesday, carrying landers belonging to the US Firefly Aerospace and Japan’s ispace.
The landers will eventually separate once they reach lunar orbit and conduct independent exploration.
They are the latest in a growing number of commercial missions to the moon.
Firefly’s rover, Blue Space, is expected to take about 45 days to reach the moon after it separates from the SpaceX rocket.
It will then drill, collect samples and also take X-ray images of Earth’s magnetic field to “advance research for future human missions to the Moon and provide insight into how space weather affects the planet,” according to SpaceX.
Meanwhile, iSpace’s Resilience lander will take up to five months to reach the lunar surface, where it will deploy a rover to explore and try to pick up loose surface material known as regolith.
NASA is backing the venture, which, if successful, will be the largest commercial moon landing to date.
Intuitive Machines became last year the first commercial company to place a lander on the moona feat previously accomplished only by the US, the Soviet Union, China, India and Japan.
Separately, SpaceX is also conducting its seventh orbital flight test of its Starship rocket, which is scheduled to lift off from Texas at 16:00 local time (22:00 GMT).
