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Firefly Aerospace, based in the Texas Hill Country, has landed on the moon.
The company announced thatonMarch 2, its Blue Ghost lunar lander softly touched down on the Moon’s surface in an upright, stable configuration on the company’s first attempt. With this achievement, Firefly became the first commercial company in history to accomplish that feat.
As part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, Firefly’s Blue Ghost Mission 1, named Ghost Riders in the Sky, sets the tone for the future of exploration across cislunar space.
“Firefly is literally and figuratively over the moon,” said Jason Kim, CEO of Firefly Aerospace. “Our Blue Ghost lunar lander now has a permanent home on the lunar surface with 10 NASA payloads and a plaque with every Firefly employee’s name.”
Carrying 10 NASA instruments, Blue Ghost completed a precision landing in Mare Crisium at 2:34 a.m. CST on March 2 and touched down within its 100-meter landing target next to a volcanic feature called Mons Latreille. Blue Ghost’s shock absorbing legs stabilized the lander as it touched down, and Firefly is successfully commanding and communicating with the lander from its Mission Operations Center in Cedar Park, Texas.
Blue Ghost will now begin its surface operations and support several NASA science and technology demonstrations over the next 14 days – equivalent to a full lunar day. The surface operations include lunar subsurface drilling, sample collection, X-ray imaging, and dust mitigation experiments. On March 14, Firefly expects to capture highdefinition imagery of a total eclipse when the Earth blocks the sun above the Moon’s horizon. On March 16, Blue Ghost will then capture the lunar sunset, providing data on how lunar dust levitates due to solar influences and creates a lunar horizon glow first documented by Eugene Cernan on Apollo 17. Following the sunset, Blue Ghost will operate several hours into the lunar night and continue to capture imagery that observes how levitating dust behavior changes after the sunset.
“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 Shea Ferring, Chief Technology Officer at Firefly Aerospace. “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.”
Throughout its 45day journey to the Moon, Blue Ghost traveled more than 2.8 million miles, downlinked more than 27 GB of data, and supported several payload science operations. Firefly will continue to provide regular updates on the Blue Ghost Mission 1 webpage through the completion of the mission. NASA’s Artemis blog will share additional details on payload operations.
