A commercial mission to put a lander on the moon launched from the Cape Canaveral Space Station in Florida on Sunday carrying the Hakuto-R lander of Japanese company ispace.
A Falcon-9 rocket made by US aerospace company SpaceX lifted the lander into orbit around the Earth in the early hours of Sunday.
The Hakuto-R is scheduled to make a soft landing on the lunar surface at the end of April. If successful, it would be the first private craft to land on the moon.
But competitors are currently planning to launch missions to the moon that will take a more direct route and could thus beat the ispace mission to the lunar surface.
Japan's ispace describes itself as aiming to expand humanity's "living sphere and create a sustainable world."
It plans to map lunar resources to accelerate space development, noting on its website that the moon's water in particular can be broken down into hydrogen and oxygen so as to provide fuel.
