SpaceX rocket launches private missions to the Moon

Two lunar colonists built by private companies in the US and Japan will leave Earth aboard a SpaceX rocket as part of a mission to the Moon.

The Falcon 9 lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 01:09 local time (06:09 GMT) on Wednesday, carrying crew members from America’s Firefly Aerospace and Japan.

Landers diverge when they reach the Moon’s orbit and conduct independent research.

They are the latest in a growing number of commercial missions to the Moon.

Firefly’s spacecraft, Blue Space, is expected to take 45 days to reach the Moon, once separated from the SpaceX rocket.

It will drill, collect samples and take X-ray images of the Earth’s magnetic field to “advance research into future human missions to the Moon and provide information on how climate affects Earth”, according to SpaceX.

Meanwhile, iSpace’s Resilience lander will take up to five months to reach the surface of the Moon, where it will deploy a rover to explore and try to pick up loose material called regolith.

NASA is supporting the project, which, if successful, will be the largest commercial mission to the Moon to date.

Last year’s Automatic Machine became the first commercial outfit to put a lander on the Moonwork that was previously done by the US, the Soviet Union, China, India and Japan.

Separately, SpaceX is conducting its seventh test of its Starship rocket, which is scheduled to take off from Texas at 16:00 (22:00 GMT).