Firefly's "Blue Moon" and ispace's "Resilience" are the latest in an ongoing push to gain private-sector experience exploring the moon.

The launch comes as NASA aims to put a human on the moon again before the end of the decade - something last achieved in 1972.

Blue Ghost’s Moon mission, launched by SpaceX, is set to revolutionize lunar exploration and offer Earth valuable lessons from space. At 1:11 a.m. EST on SpaceX launched its Falcon 9 rocket carrying Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lunar lander.

According to SpaceX's official statement, the Blue Ghost lander will start its nearly 45-day journey to the Moon once it is deployed into a lunar transfer orbit.

A SpaceX rocket carrying two commercial lunar landers took off toward space early Wednesday morning in another step toward an era of private moon exploration. This carpool to the moon carried Blue Ghost,

In a monumental step forward for private lunar exploration, SpaceX has successfully launched two groundbreaking moon landers—Blue Ghost and Resilience—aboard a Falcon 9 rocket on January 15, 2025. Developed by Texas-based Firefly Aerospace and Tokyo-based ispace,