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Roughly the size of a compact car, the four-legged Blue Ghost touched down at approximately 3:35 am ET (0835 GMT) near an ancient volcanic vent in Mare Crisium, a large basin on the Moon’s Earth-facing side. The spacecraft carried 10 scientific payloads designed for research and data collection.

Tension filled the mission control room at Firefly’s headquarters in Austin, Texas, as the lander descended at a slow two miles per hour. Moments before landing, Will Coogan, Chief Engineer for Blue Ghost, confirmed that the spacecraft had entered lunar gravity. Then came the long-awaited words: “We’re on the Moon.” The room erupted in cheers.

With this achievement, Firefly became the second private company to successfully land on the Moon. However, the company claims to be the first to achieve a "fully successful" soft landing, referencing Houston-based Intuitive Machines Odysseus lander, which landed last year but suffered a tilt that rendered many onboard instruments unusable.

A New Era of Private Lunar Missions

So far, only five nations—the former Soviet Union, the U.S., China, India, and Japan—have achieved soft landings on the Moon. Now, private companies are increasingly playing a role in lunar exploration. The U.S. and China are both racing to send astronauts to the Moon later this decade, incorporating their private sectors in spacecraft development.

To reach the Moon, Blue Ghost took a circuitous route, orbiting Earth three times and covering 2.8 million miles before reaching its destination 238,000 miles (383,000 km) away. It landed nearly a month and a half after launching atop a SpaceX rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Firefly’s mission is one of three active lunar missions. Japan’s ispace launched its second lander aboard the same rocket as Blue Ghost in January, while Intuitive Machines embarked on its second lunar mission just last week.

Scientific Goals & Future Exploration

Blue Ghost’s three solar panels will power its instruments for 14 days, after which the lander will be rendered inoperative by the extreme cold of the lunar night, where temperatures drop to minus 280°F (minus 173°C).

These low-cost precursor missions aim to gather critical data about the lunar environment before NASA’s crewed Artemis missions begin in 2027. Meanwhile, China is rapidly advancing its Chang’e lunar program and plans to land astronauts on the Moon by 2030. Other nations, including Japan and India, are also making significant lunar exploration strides.

Firefly secured a $101 million contract for the Blue Ghost mission under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, which seeks to create a competitive private lunar market and make Moon landings more affordable and routine. Other spacefaring nations, including India and Europe, are following NASA’s model by investing in private space startups.

The Bigger Picture

NASA’s CLPS chief Chris Culbert highlighted the success of this model, stating: “We landed on the Moon, almost perfectly.” The touchdown comes at a pivotal moment for the U.S. space industry, as shifting political priorities could refocus NASA’s efforts toward Mars.

During the landing event, Acting NASA Administrator Janet Petro reaffirmed that the Moon remains central to America’s space strategy, emphasizing the countrys goal to “dominate” space.

Scientific Research Onboard Blue Ghost

Two key instruments onboard Blue Ghost will analyze lunar soil and subsurface temperatures as part of an experiment by Honeybee Robotics, a subsidiary of Blue Origin—which is also developing a lunar lander for NASA’s Artemis program.

Additionally, NASA’s Langley Research Center has deployed a stereo camera on the lander to study the dust clouds generated by the landing. This data will help predict how lunar dust behaves during future, larger Moon missions.

Firefly’s success represents another step forward in commercial lunar exploration, helping pave the way for future human missions to the Moon and beyond.