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.

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.

A spacecraft carrying NASA instruments has launched on its journey to the moon.The Latest Tech News, Delivered to Your Inbox

SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket carrying a pair of lunar landers into space early Wednesday, sending Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost and ispace's Resilience on their lengthy journeys to the moon.

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.

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.

The two robotic lunar landers —one from Firefly Aerospace based near Austin, Texas, and another from the Japanese space company ispace—will use their own small engines for the final maneuvers required to enter orbit around the Moon in the coming months.

In a two-for-one moonshot, SpaceX launched a pair of lunar landers Wednesday for U.S. and Japanese companies looking to jumpstart business on Earth's dusty sidekick.