Robotic vehicles from Firefly Aerospace of Texas and Ispace of Japan parted ways early Wednesday after being launched on the same SpaceX rocket. Both are aiming for the lunar surface.

Firefly's Blue Ghost lander, originally scheduled to lift off in late 2024, is on its maiden voyage. The uncrewed spacecraft is expected to travel for 45 days before trying to touch down in early March. Its flight is the first NASA Commercial Lunar Payload Services mission of the year .

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

An illustration of a private U.S. lander on the surface of the moon built by Texas-based company Firefly Aerospace. The company’s Blue Ghost lander is carrying a suite of scientific instruments to the moon, including an experiment to detect and use GPS satellite signals on the lunar surface.

They are the latest in a growing number of commercial missions to the Moon. Firefly's rover, Blue Ghost, is expected to take about 45 days to reach the Moon, once it has separated from the SpaceX rocket.

A SpaceX rocket set to launch overnight will carry two lunar landers, one from Austin-based Firefly Aerospace and one from Japan’s ispace.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched lunar landers for Firefly Aerospace and the Japanese company ispace early this morning (Jan. 15).

Two robotic landers are set to begin their journeys to the moon Wednesday morning, when they launch aboard a SpaceX rocket from NASA's Kennedy Space Center.

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,