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.

SpaceX has sent Japanese and U.S. lunar landers on separate missions in a major step in the race to commercialize the Moon.

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.