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,

Robotic vehicles from Firefly Aerospace of Texas and Ispace of Japan parted ways early Wednesday after being launched on the same SpaceX rocket. Both are aiming for the lunar surface.

Firefly's Blue Ghost lunar lander has launched from Kennedy Space Center Pad 39A, and is on a 45-day journey to the moon for NASA.