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

The mission featured two robotic lunar landers: one from Texas-based Firefly Aerospace and another from the Japanese space company ispace. Both landers, each roughly the size

Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lunar lander launched at 1:11 a.m. Wednesday from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on the SpaceX rocket before separating an hour later. The lunar lander — part of a mission known as Blue Ghost Mission 1 or Ghost Riders in the Sky — will spend 45 days in orbit and 14 days on the surface of the moon.