Posted: Sat, Mar 1, 2025, 11:20 AM ET (1620 GMT)
A Falcon 9 launched a commercial lunar lander and three rideshare payloads Wednesday evening. The rocket lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center at 7:16 pm EST (0016 GMT Thursday) deploying the IM-2 lunar lander nearly 45 minutes later. IM-2 is scheduled to land on the moon March 6 carrying NASA and commercial payloads. Also on the launch were three rideshare payloads: NASA's Lunar Trailblazer orbiter, an asteroid prospecting spacecraft for AstroForge and an orbital transfer vehicle developed by Epic Aerospace.

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