What just happened? In a historic dual-launch mission, SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket successfully deployed two commercial lunar landers early Wednesday morning, marking a significant milestone in the race to establish a sustainable presence on the Moon. The launch, which took place at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 1:11 am EST, sent the spacecraft on separate trajectories towards Earth's celestial neighbor. The mission featured two robotic lunar landers: one from Texas-based Firefly Aerospace and another from the Japanese space company ispace. Both landers, each roughly the size of an SUV, were released into slightly different orbits ranging from 200,000 to 225,000 miles from Earth. This strategic deployment will allow the spacecraft to utilize their own propulsion systems for the final maneuvers required to enter lunar orbit in the coming months.Firefly's Blue Ghost lander, part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, carries a suite of scientific instruments and technology demonstrations. The CLPS program, established in 2018, aims to foster the development of commercial lunar landers while providing NASA with a cost-effective means of delivering payloads to the Moon. Joel Kearns, deputy associate administrator for exploration in NASA's science directorate, acknowledged the high-risk nature of these missions to Ars Technica but emphasized their potential rewards. "We know it's high risk. We accept it's high risk, but man, it's high reward. So it is worth taking the risk because the science that we will get back from these missions is just going to be amazing."The Blue Ghost lander is scheduled to spend approximately 25 days in Earth orbit before embarking on a four-day transit to the Moon. Its target landing site is Mare Crisium, a vast impact basin on the Moon's near side. Upon touchdown, tentatively set for March 2, the lander will operate for about 14 days, conducting experiments with its onboard instruments, including a subsurface drill and an X-ray imager.Alongside Firefly's lander, ispace's Resilience lander represents a purely commercial venture. This mission marks ispace's second attempt at lunar landing, following a crash in 2023 due to a software error. "I think the fact that we have two lunar landers on the same rocket for the first time in history is pretty substantial," said Ron Garan, CEO of ispace's US-based subsidiary and a former NASA astronaut. "I think we all are rooting for each other." The Resilience lander will take a longer journey of four to five months to reach the Moon. It carries several innovative experiments, including a water electrolyzer to test equipment for converting lunar ice into electricity and rocket fuel. Additionally, it will deploy a micro-rover named Tenacious, designed to collect lunar soil samples and capture high-definition imagery.The mission showcases the growing collaboration within the commercial space sector and SpaceX's approach to reducing launch costs."When we have two missions that can each go to the Moon on the same launch, that is something that we obviously want to take advantage of," said Julianna Scheiman, director of NASA science missions for SpaceX.