Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lunar lander carrying a vacuum, drill, and other equipment for experiments for NASA touched down on the moon on March 2.
The lander’s mission is the latest of several undertaken by a group of companies looking to establish business on the moon before NASA sends human missions with its Artemis program. While on autopilot, Blue Ghost descended from lunar orbit and aimed for slopes on an ancient volcanic dome in an impact basin. The area is located on the northeastern edge of the moon’s nearest side.
Firefly Aerospace, a startup founded a decade ago, confirmed the successful touchdown from its Mission Control outside Austin, Texas, after following the exploration roughly 225,000 miles away.
“You all stuck the landing. We’re on the moon,” said Will Coogan, Firefly’s chief engineer for the lander.
Firefly is the first private company to successfully land a spacecraft on the moon in an upright and stable position. Multiple countries have failed, and only five have succeeded: the United States, Russia, China, India, and Japan.
The lander began sending pictures from the moon’s surface a half hour after landing, with the sun’s glare obscuring one. The second photo showed the Earth as a blue dot amid the blackness of space.
Two other companies are seeking to follow Blue Ghost’s success, with one expected to join it on the moon’s surface later this week.
Named after a rare species of firefly, Blue Ghost, a four-legged lander, is 6.5 feet tall and 11 feet wide. The dimensions provide extra stability, the company said.
The lander is carrying 10 experiments to the moon for NASA after launching in mid-January from Florida. NASA paid $101 million for the delivery and $44 million for the science and technology on board. It’s also the third mission in the space agency’s commercial lunary delivery program, which looks to establish a lunar economy of various private companies while scouting the area ahead of astronaut missions later this decade.
Blue Ghost avoided hazards such as boulders to land safely, Firefly’s Ray Allensworth said, adding that the team continues to analyze data to determine the lander’s exact location. However, all indications are that it is within the 328-foot target zone of Mare Crisium.
The lander should run for two weeks before lunar daytime ends and Blue Ghost shuts down.
Its onboard experiments and tech include a vacuum to suck up moon dirt for analysis and a drill to measure temperature below the surface as deep as 10 feet. There’s also a device onboard for removing abrasive lunar dust, which proved problematic for NASA’s historic Apollo astronauts, whose spacesuits and equipment were covered with it.
Blue Ghost transmitted breathtaking photos of Earth on its way to the moon. It also sent detailed images of the moon’s gray, pockmarked surface as it began its orbit around Earth’s celestial neighbor.
Meanwhile, Blue Ghost’s onboard receiver tracked and received signals from the U.S. GPS and European Galileo constellations, which could prove useful for future space navigation.
The mission also set the stage for a new batch of companies looking to establish business on the moon.
Houston-based Intuitive Missions has another lander set to touchdown on the moon on March 6. The tall and skinny 15-foot spacecraft is aiming for an area just 100 miles from the moon’s south pole, which is closer to the pole than the company got last year with a previous lander that tipped over after breaking a leg.
Despite the failed landing, Intuitive Machines’ mission put the United States back on the moon for the first time since NASA wrapped the Apollo program in 1972.
Japanese company ispace has a third lander that is three months away from its lunar mission. It launched into space from Cape Canaveral on Jan. 15 on the same rocket as Blue Ghost but is taking a longer route. After its first lander crashed in 2023, ispace, like Intuitive Machines, is attempting a second lunar landing.
