Lunar Lander Travels Deeper Into Space Than Any Other Commercial Spacecraft

The Hakuto-R spacecraft won’t land on the Moon until April, but the private mission is already in the record books.

Tokyo-based company ispace developed the lunar spacecraft and lander with the aim of becoming the first private mission to successfully land on the Moon. During its long journey to the Moon, Hakuto-R got as far as 855,000 miles (1.376 million kilometers) away from Earth on January 20. That distance made the Japanese lunar spacecraft the “farthest privately funded, commercially operating spacecraft to travel into space,” the company said in its statement.

The lunar probe CAPSTONE, which is operated by private company Advanced Space, reached a further distance of 951,908 miles (1,531,948 km) from Earth on its way to the Moon, according to Space.com. However, the spacecraft was funded by NASA so it does not qualify as a purely commercial effort.

The Japanese lunar mission launched on board SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket on December 11 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.