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, began their journeys into space on Wednesday with SpaceX's unusual double moonshot launch,

One rocket, two missions: lunar landers built by US and Japanese companies launched their “rideshare” to the moon on Wednesday, showcasing the private sector’s growing role in space exploration. On board the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that took off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida were Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost and ispace’s Resilience from Japan,