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'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.

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,