Firefly's "Blue Moon" and ispace's "Resilience" are the latest in an ongoing push to gain private-sector experience exploring the moon.

SpaceX is targeting Tuesday, January 14 for Falcon 9’s launch of the Transporter-12 mission to low-Earth orbit from California.

SpaceX launched its Starship rocket on its latest test flight Thursday, but the spacecraft was destroyed following a thrilling booster catch back at the pad. Elon Musk’s company said Starship broke apart — what it called a “rapid unscheduled disassembly.

While the Starship is lost, the mission's first-stage booster successfully returned to the launch tower, where it was caught by the tower's robotic arms.

By Joey Roulette WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A SpaceX Starship prototype failed in space minutes after launching from Texas on Thursday, forcing airline flights over the Gulf of Mexico to alter course to avoid falling debris and setting back Elon Musk's flagship rocket program.

NBC News follows along as Starship attempted for the first time to deploy dummy satellites in space, and its fuel tank was 25% bigger, among other upgrades.