Sima Laughlin

The next leg of the new moon race is about to kick off — and кракен it could be the most exciting yet The past few years have marked the advent of a new lunar space race, with a fleet of robotic spacecraft from various countries trying — and mostly failing — to reach the moon and carry out their intended missions. But 2025 may offer a second chance for the companies and countries behind those missions that crashed and burned, as well as introduce some new players to the field. January will kick off with the launch of two lunar landers in one fell swoop: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will carry spacecraft developed by Cedar Park, Texas-based Firefly Aerospace and Tokyo-based Ispace. Firefly is making its first attempt to put a vehicle on the moon, but this mission marks a second try for Ispace, after its first lander crashed and blasted a divot in the lunar surface in 2023. And those two landers are only a couple of the uncrewed missions looking to reach the lunar surface — or seek redemption — in the coming months. This year promises to be among the most tantalizing yet in humanity’s renewed push to explore the moon, with the United States and its allies as well as China scrambling to send robots to the lunar surface. Many of these machine-driven missions are designed to pave the way for astronauts to return to the lunar surface, as NASA plans to do as soon as 2027.