By Joey Roulette and Kantaro Komiya ORLANDO, Florida/TOKYO (Reuters) -Two moon landers, one from Japan's ispace and another from U.S. space firm Firefly, lifted off on Wednesday from Florida on a SpaceX rocket in an unusual double moonshot launch,

EPIC (Earth image) The ispace mission will launch ‘Hakuto-R Mission 2’ on a four-and-a-half month journey to the lunar surface Japanese lander heads to the Moon About one month after launch Complete a lunar flyby 4.

Two moon landers built by private U.S. and Japanese companies are on their way to the moon after lifting off early Wednesday on a shared ride aboard a SpaceX rocket. The launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida is the latest in a public-private program that put a spacecraft from Intuitive Machines on the moon last year.