Two lunar rovers built by private companies in the US and Japan left Earth on a SpaceX rocket as part of a rideshare trip to the Moon.
Falcon 9 took off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 01:09 local time (06:09 GMT) on Wednesday, carrying passengers from America’s Firefly Aerospace and Japan’s iSpace.
The occupants will eventually separate once they reach the Moon’s 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, once separated from the SpaceX rocket.
It will then drill, collect samples and take X-ray images of Earth’s magnetic field to “advance research on future human missions to the Moon and provide insights into how space weather affects the planet”, according to SpaceX.
Meanwhile, iSpace’s Resilience lander will take five months to reach the lunar surface, where it will deploy the rover for testing and try to pick up loose surface material known as regolith.
Nasa is backing the effort, which, if successful, would be its largest commercial delivery to the Moon to date.
Intuitive Machines last year was the first commercial outfit to put a Lander on the Moona feat previously accomplished only by the US, the Soviet Union, China, India and Japan.
Separately, SpaceX is also conducting a test flight of the seventh orbital rocket of its Starship, which should leave Texas at 16:00 local time (22:00 GMT).
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