Japanese startup Ispace on Tuesday set a June 6 target touchdown date for its moon lander, following the success of its rocket "rideshare" buddy, a spacecraft from a U.S. firm.
Ispace's unmanned Resilience lander was launched in January on the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket together with Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost — which aced its lunar landing on Sunday.
Blue Ghost is only the second private mission to achieve the milestone, and the first to do so upright after a separate U.S. company's lander toppled over on arrival.
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.