Japanese company's private Moon mission enters Lunar orbit - The Register

Within Hakuto-R's payload lies a first for another nation: the United Arab Emirates' first Moon mission, the Rashid rover.

Also onboard is a lunar camera from Candensys Aerospace and an AI flight computer from Mission Control Services, both of which are Canadian.

NASA's lunar flashlight is also hitching a ride, as is SORA-Q – a transformable robot built by a partnership between Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Doshisha University, Sony, and Japanese toy company Tomy.

The ambitious biz said it is in "active negotiations" with a number of global entities for both future lunar landings and transport to orbit.

"During Mission 3, two relay satellites are planned to be injected into lunar orbit to establish communications with the landing site on the far side of the Moon," said ispace.

A previous private moonshot, the Israeli "Beresheet" mission, made it to the moon but crashed-landed in 2019.