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.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral on Wednesday morning carrying two private lunar landers into orbit in support of NASA’s future Artemis landing crews. The Blue Ghost and Resilience landers,

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.