Japan’s ispace launches world’s first commercial moon lander

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, with a payload including two lunar rovers from Japan and the United Arab Emirates, lifts off from Cape Canaveral Sunday. Pic/AP

A Japanese space startup launched a spacecraft to the moon on Sunday after several delays, a step toward what would be a first for the nation and for a private company. ispace Inc's HAKUTO-R mission took off without incident from Cape Canaveral, Florida, after two postponements caused by inspections of its SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

The company hopes this will be the first of many deliveries of government and commercial payloads. The ispace craft aims to put a small NASA satellite into lunar orbit to search for water deposits before touching down in the Atlas Crater.

The M1 lander will deploy two robotic rovers, a two-wheeled, baseball-sized device from Japan's JAXA space agency and the four-wheeled Rashid explorer made by UAE. The national space agencies of the USA, Russia and China have achieved soft landings on Earth's nearest neighbour in the past half century but no companies have.

Also read: NASA capsule buzzes moon, last big step before lunar orbit

NASA's Orion capsule heads for splashdown

NASA's Orion capsule hurtled in space on Sunday on its final return leg of its voyage around the moon and back, winding up the inaugural mission of the Artemis lunar program 50 years to the day after Apollo's final moon landing.

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