The US firm Firefly Aerospace has claimed to be the first commercial company to achieve “a fully successful soft landing on the Moon”. Yesterday, the company’s Blue Ghost lunar lander touched down on the Moon’s surface in an “upright, stable configuration”. It will now operate for 14 days where it will drill into the lunar soil and image a total eclipse from the Moon where the Earth blocks the Sun.
Blue Ghost was launched on 15 January from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida via a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Following a 45-day trip, the craft landed in Mare Crisium, touching down within its 100 m landing target next to a volcanic feature called Mons Latreille.
The mission is carrying 10 NASA instruments, which includes a lunar subsurface drill, sample collector, X-ray imager and dust-mitigation experiments. “With the hardest part behind us, Firefly looks forward to completing more than 14 days of surface operations, again raising the bar for commercial cislunar capabilities,” notes Shea Ferring, chief technology officer at Firefly Aerospace.
In February 2024 the Houston-based company Intuitive Machines became the first private firm to soft land on the Moon with its Odysseus mission. Yet it suffered a few hiccups prior to touch down and rather than landing vertically, did so at a 30 degree angle, which affected radio-transmission rates.
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The Firefly mission is part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative, which contracts the private sector to develop missions with the aim of reducing costs.
Firefly’s Blue Ghost Mission 2 is expected to launch next year, where it will aim to land on the far side of the Moon. “With annual lunar missions, Firefly is paving the way for a lasting lunar presence that will help unlock access to the rest of the solar system for our nation, our partners, and the world,” notes Jason Kim, chief executive officer of Firefly Aerospace.
