Japanese startup ispace aims to become the first private company to land a robot on the moon.

The Hakuto-R lander is expected to start landing on the lunar surface at around 15:40 GMT if all goes according to plan.

The vehicle slows down about 100 kilometers above the lunar surface, then adjusts and corrects its altitude to perform a "soft landing" after about an hour.

However, the success of the mission is not guaranteed. In April 2019, the "Berecht" probe, which was manufactured by the Israeli company "SpaceIL", crashed on the surface of the moon.

iSpace has announced three alternative landing sites and could push the date of the operation to April 26 or May 1 or 3, depending on circumstances.

The spacecraft, which measures two by two and a half meters, entered the lunar orbit last month, after it was launched in December from the American base of Cape Canaveral, mounted on a SpaceX rocket.

Only the United States, Russia and China have so far been able to land robots on the surface of the moon, located 400,000 km from Earth.

Japan and the United States announced last year their intention to cooperate to send a Japanese astronaut to the moon by the end of the decade.

The robot carries several lunar vehicles, including a Japanese miniature model developed by the Japanese Space Agency in collaboration with toy maker Takara Tomy.

The Japanese spacecraft also carries another lunar vehicle, the Emirati lunar explorer "Rashid", which was designed and built by the United Arab Emirates. In the event that "Rashid" succeeds in landing, he will carry out the first Arab mission on the moon.

The "Hakuto" ("White Rabbit" in Japanese) project was one of five projects that reached the final stage of the international "Google Lunar Express" competition, for which no winner was announced, as no company was able to land a robot before the deadline (2018).