Moon dust and other characteristics of the lunar environment are due for closer inspection if two newly launched landers can make it safely to the lunar surface.
Two pioneering commercial lunar landers, Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost Mission 1 and Japan's ispace's Resilience, successfully launched early Jan. 15.
Ispace says it is targeting another attempt to touch down a lunar lander on the Moon’s surface around four to five months after launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9.
Reaching the Moon to do something useful there involves preparation—which is now underway as agencies and companies aim to return humans to the lunar surface.
China’s iSpace has completed the country’s first test of a reusable rocket, performing a 50-sec. "hop" with the first stage of its Hyperbola-2 launch vehicle.