"Tom Swift in the Race to the Moon" The New Tom Swift Jr. Adventures by Victor Appleton II

Tom Swift builds his massive new moonship, the Challenger, which travels using invisible beams of force and his "super-repelatron" invention.
Friendly aliens from another planet contact Tom and ask for a rendezvous in space. A severe, unknown disease is threatening their civilization, and animal specimens need to be studied on the moon to find a cure that might otherwise risk life on Earth as well.
A ruthless foreign faction tries to beat Tom to the moon in a rival rocket ship, hoping to seize the disease specimens for germ warfare technology.
Tom and his best friend Bud Barclay race through space against the rival ship, manage a dramatic rendezvous with the alien spacecraft, and overcome the perils of the flight.