A SpaceX rocket will take off on Wednesday carrying a Japanese-made lunar probe that could become the first private and Japanese spacecraft to land on the moon, AFP reported.

The Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to lift off Wednesday at 3:39 a.m. (08:39 GMT) from Cape Canaveral, Florida. A backup date is scheduled for Thursday if needed.

To date, only the US, Russia and China have successfully landed robots on the moon, approximately 400,000 km from Earth.

This mission by the Japanese company Ispace is the first in a program called Hakuto-R. According to the company’s statement, it plans to land around April 2023 on the visible side of the moon, in the Atlas Crater.

The lander, which is not designed for a human crew, carries a small 10-kilogram Rashid rover built by the United Arab Emirates.

The United Arab Emirates is a newcomer to the space race and has struggled to establish itself in recent years. If successful, it will be the first lunar mission by an Arab country.

“We’ve accomplished a lot in the past six years since we first conceptualized this project in 2016,” Ispace CEO Takeshi Hakamada said in a statement.

Hakuto’s project was one of five finalists in the international Google Lunar XPrize competition, which ended without a winner because no company could send a robot to the moon by the set date (2018). But some projects were not abandoned.

Another finalist from Israel’s SpaceIL in April 2019 failed in its attempt to become the first privately funded mission to accomplish the feat. The lunar lander fell to the surface.

Ispace, which employs only about 200 people, plans to create a “low-cost scheduled transportation service to the moon.”

The Japanese company also wants to contribute to NASA’s Artemis program, whose first unmanned mission is currently underway.