American Spacecraft Touches Down on Moon

Texas-based space company Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander has become the second private spacecraft in history to softly touch down on the Moon’s surface.

In fact, the company claimed in an announcement that it was the first to “successfully” do so, effectively arguing that Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus lander failed when it toppled over during its attempt last year (Odysseus failed to reestablish connection with the Earth a month after landing on the Moon).

Firefly’s car-sized lander touched down within its target landing zone in the Mare Crisium, a massive basin on the Moon’s near side.

It’s since sent back several photographs, showing it settled on the rocky surface with the Earth glinting in the distance. One image even shows its own shadow as the Sun slowly rises.

It’s yet another sign that the Moon’s surface is back within reach over half a century after NASA’s Apollo program launched its final mission — and building buzz around the space agency’s first crewed lunar mission since then, which is still tentatively scheduled for mid-2027.

Blue Ghost will spend the next lunar day — the equivalent of 14 Earth days — studying the lunar environment on behalf of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program.

On March 14, it’ll take high-definition images of the Earth eclipsing the Sun from its perspective. On Earth, onlookers will be able to observe a total lunar eclipse, which will turn the Moon a deep red.

“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,” said Firefly CTO Shea Ferring in a statement.

Blue Ghost carries ten different scientific instruments on behalf of NASA. Its “surface operations include lunar subsurface drilling, sample collection, X-ray imaging, and dust mitigation experiments,” according to the company.

“We want to thank NASA for entrusting in the Firefly team, and we look forward to delivering even more science data that supports future human missions to the Moon and Mars,” Ferring said.

Blue Ghost is the first of three landers to attempt to land on the Moon within the next few months. Houston-based company Intuitive Machines’ Athena lander — the followup to the one that didn’t stick the landing — will attempt to land on the lunar surface as soon as Thursday. And Japanese space company ispace’s Hakuto-R Mission 2 will make its attempt later this spring.

Firefly’s lander has downlinked an astonishing 27 gigabytes of data over the last 45 days. And considering the many photo opportunities coming up soon, we can’t wait to check out the next batch of images.

More on the landers: Robot With Large Drill Headed for Surface of Moon