Blue Ghost's main mission will be research. It will hang out in Earth's orbit for 25 days taking measurements and waiting for the right time to fling itself to the moon. After four days in transit, Blue Ghost will spend 16 days in lunar orbit collecting more data before descending to Mare Crisium, one of the largest basins on the moon.

The spacecraft built and operated by Texas-based Firefly Aerospace launched in the early Monday hours from Florida aboard a SpaceX rocket.