A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blared toward space Wednesday carrying 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.

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