A commercial spacecraft carrying NASA experiments successfully touched down on the moon's surface early Sunday morning, ushering in a new phase of private space exploration.

The landing precedes by just four days the planned arrival of a second uncrewed American spacecraft built and operated by Intuitive Machines. The space exploration company, also based in Texas, etched its name in the history books a year ago when its spacecraft,

Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost spacecraft made history today (March 2), becoming just the second private vehicle ever to soft-land on the moon.