A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is set to launch a pair of lunar landers on a journey to our closest celestial neighbor — kicking off what’s expected to be a bustling year of moon missions amid a renewed race to establish a long-term human presence on the lunar surface.

With the nearly full moon shining overhead, two companies, one American and the other headquartered in Japan, launched privately-developed robotic lunar landers early Wednesday, sharing a sky-lighting ride to space atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

The two lunar landers — Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost and Resilience, built by the Japanese company ispace — lifted off aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket early this morning (Jan. 15) from NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) here on Florida's Space Coast.