Early on Tuesday morning (Jan. 15), a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket sent Blue Ghost and Resilience — lunar landers built by Firefly Aerospace and the Tokyo-based company ispace, respectively — into the final frontier from Florida's Space Coast.

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.

The mission, named Ghost Riders in the Sky, launched from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, at 1:11 a.m. ET. Blue Ghost separated from the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 2:17 a.m. ET and established communications with Firefly's Mission Operations Center in Cedar Park, Texas, at 2:26 a.m. ET.