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While SpaceX has a major head start on the way to orbit, Blue Origin has a plan to put an uncrewed spacecraft on the moon in 12-16 months.

Bigger than the Statue of Liberty, the SpaceX vehicle is central to NASA’s plans to get to the moon and Elon Musk’s dreams of the red planet.

The privately built American spacecraft’s ability to send home images and other data has been limited by its sideways landing. On another part of the moon, a Japanese spacecraft woke up.

A SpaceX rocket lifted the spacecraft, which was built by Intuitive Machines of Houston to carry cargo for NASA and other customers to the lunar surface.

The latest flight of a private company attempting to carry NASA payloads to the lunar surface was delayed to Thursday morning.

Carnegie Mellon University students built Iris, a tiny lunar rover. When the spacecraft carrying it to the moon malfunctioned, they turned their vacation house into mission control.

The Astrobotic Peregrine spacecraft launched last week for a lunar landing, but a propulsion malfunction left it unable to complete its mission.

A SpaceX launch to the International Space Station led by the company Axiom Space illustrates how traditional and private space efforts are mixing.