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 .

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

The two landers that departed from Kennedy Space Center are the latest in a stream of private spacecraft headed to the moon.

In a two-for-one moonshot, SpaceX launched a pair of lunar landers Wednesday for U.S. and Japanese companies looking to jumpstart business on Earth’s dusty sidekick. The two landers rocketed away in the middle of the night from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center,