On its way to the moon, Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lunar lander has taken its first space pictures as it orbits Earth. The Texas-based company has been sharing the breathtaking videos and images in the weeks since Blue Ghost’s launch on January 15.

However, in lieu of a mass simulator, Astrobotic wanted to see if it could find a more useful payload. So as the company's engineers pressed ahead with the Griffin mission, Thornton went to the lunar industry and asked if anyone else needed a ride.

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.

Blue Ghost's final descent to the Moon is tentatively scheduled for March 2. The target landing site is in Mare Crisium, an ancient 350-mile-wide (560-kilometer) impact basin in the northeast part of the near side of the Moon.

Firefly Aerospace's "little lander" has captured the littlest lunar eclipse in a breathtaking video captured from Earth orbit.