SpaceX’s Falcon 9 on Wednesday launched two lunar landers to the Moon as it gears up to land humans back on the surface of the Moon in the future.
What Happened: The SpaceX rocket launched Firefly Space‘s Blue Ghost and ispace‘s Resilience lunar landers to the Moon from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The Blue Ghost lander was deployed into a lunar transfer orbit following which it began its near 45-day journey to the Moon. Upon landing on the Moon, NASA’s payloads will conduct numerous science and technology demonstrations.
The ispace Resilience lander, meanwhile, will go on a 4-5 month journey to the Moon after deployment. It will set down on the lunar surface and begin exploration activities.
“Today's mission is our third launch to a lunar surface and just the first of several our Falcon fleet will launch for NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program this year,” SpaceX said in a post on social media platform X.
The missions launched as part of NASA's CLPS program will serve as precursors to landing astronauts safely on the Moon in the future as part of the Artemis program, the company added.
Why It Matters: NASA is looking forward to landing humans back on the surface of the Moon after a gap of over 50 years with the help of a custom version of SpaceX’s Starship launch vehicle under its Artemis program in September 2026.
The last time humans set foot on the Moon was in 1972 with Apollo 17. Since then, no crew has traveled beyond low-Earth orbit.
However, the Starship is still in the testing and development phase. The company has conducted six test flights of the vehicle thus far and is preparing for its seventh test flight.
The seventh test flight of Starship is slated for Wednesday at 4 p.m. CT but the company has warned that unfavorable weather can cause changes to the launch schedule.
As the Starship continues to undergo testing, SpaceX continues to keep up its launch cadence with its Falcon launch vehicle.
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