A SpaceX rocket carrying two commercial lunar landers took off toward space early Wednesday morning in another step toward an era of private moon exploration. This carpool to the moon carried Blue Ghost,

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 landers rocketed away in the middle of the night from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, the latest in a stream of private spacecraft aiming for the moon.