The Blue Ghost Lunar Lander soared out of the Florida coastline and into space, shining as bright as a Central Texas firefly in the summertime. "It's an incredible privilege, and it's hard to fully understand the extent of that impact," said Kevin Scholtes, the future systems architect at Firefly Aerospace.

Frank Sinatra once crooned, "Fly me to the moon. Let me play among the stars," and for two companies, including one here in Texas, SpaceX granted that wish.

Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lunar lander launched at 1:11 a.m. Wednesday from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on the SpaceX rocket before separating an hour later. The lunar lander — part of a mission known as Blue Ghost Mission 1 or Ghost Riders in the Sky — will spend 45 days in orbit and 14 days on the surface of the moon.

Firefly Aerospace, the leader in end-to-end responsive space services, today announced Firefly’s Blue Ghost lunar lander launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, successfully acquired signal, and completed on-orbit commissioning.

Austin-area space company Firefly Aerospace, with help from SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, to launch Blue Ghost mission to the moon on Wednesday, January 15.

A SpaceX mission set to lift off overnight marks a first for Firefly Aerospace under NASA’s plans to build up American companies to support its lunar goals. A Falcon 9 targeting a 1:11 a.m, liftoff Wednesday from KSC’s Launch Pad 39-A is carrying the Cedar Park,

CEDAR PARK, Texas — A Central Texas aerospace company is making final preparations before blasting off to the stars. Early Wednesday morning, the lunar lander built by Firefly Aerospace is set to launch from Florida and head to the moon.

In 2011, the 30-year space shuttle program ended as Atlantis touched down at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. With five shuttles ad 355 space flyers, the program completed 135 missions. Today, Atlantis is on display at the Kennedy Space Center Visitors’ Center.

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.

Firefly Aerospace, the leader in end-to-end responsive space services, today announced Firefly’s Blue Ghost lunar lander launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, successfully acquired signal, and completed on-orbit commissioning.

Tucked inside the rocket’s bullet-shaped nose cone were the two lunar landers — hailing from two different countries. The first is Blue Ghost, a 6.6-foot-tall (2-meter-tall) lunar lander developed by Firefly Aerospace, a Cedar Park, Texas-based company.

The spacecraft built and operated by Texas-based Firefly Aerospace launched in the early Monday hours from Florida aboard a SpaceX rocket.