An American company achieved a significant space milestone on Sunday as its spacecraft successfully landed on the Moon, becoming only the second private mission to accomplish this feat—and the first to remain upright upon touchdown.
Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 touched down at 3:34 am US Eastern Time (0834 GMT) near Mons Latreille, a volcanic region within Mare Crisium on the Moon’s northeastern near side.
“Y’all stuck the landing, we’re on the Moon,” an engineer at Firefly’s mission control in Austin, Texas, announced as the team erupted into cheers.
CEO Jason Kim later confirmed that the lander was “stable and upright”—a notable contrast to the first private lunar landing in February, which ended with the spacecraft lying on its side.
NASA’s Science Mission Directorate associate administrator, Nicky Fox, also celebrated the achievement, declaring, “We’re on the Moon!”
A Smooth, Autonomous Descent
The first image sent back by Blue Ghost revealed a rugged, cratered surface that the lander had to autonomously assess in order to find a suitable touchdown site.
The spacecraft executed a precise deceleration, reducing its speed from thousands of miles per hour to a mere two mph before landing.
Nicknamed “Ghost Riders in the Sky,” the mission is part of NASA’s collaboration with private industry, aimed at cutting costs and advancing the Artemis program, which seeks to return astronauts to the lunar surface.
The golden lander, roughly the size of a hippopotamus, began its journey on January 15, launching aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Along its 2.8-million-mile trek, it captured breathtaking footage of both Earth and the Moon.
Blue Ghost’s voyage was shared with a Japanese lander, which is slated for its own landing attempt in May.
Advanced Payloads and a Lunar Eclipse Observation
Equipped with 10 cutting-edge instruments, Blue Ghost is designed to gather critical lunar data. Among its payloads are a lunar soil analyzer, a radiation-tolerant computer, and an experiment testing whether global satellite navigation systems can be adapted for lunar use.
The lander is built to operate for an entire lunar day (14 Earth days), during which it will capture high-definition imagery of a total solar eclipse on March 14, when Earth will completely block the Sun from the Moon’s perspective.
Two days later, on March 16, Blue Ghost is expected to record a lunar sunset, providing new insights into the phenomenon of dust levitating above the Moon’s surface under solar influence—a mystery first documented by Apollo 17 astronaut Eugene Cernan.
The Next Private Lunar Landing: Intuitive Machines’ IM-2
Hot on Blue Ghost’s heels, another Texas-based company, Intuitive Machines, is set to launch its IM-2 mission on March 6. This mission features the Athena lander, an improved version of the spacecraft that made history in February as the first private lander to reach the Moon—but with an unfortunate twist.
Intuitive Machines’ previous mission, IM-1, marked the first US lunar landing since Apollo 17 in 1972, but the lander’s rapid descent caused it to tip over, reducing its ability to generate solar power and cutting the mission short.
This time, the company has made key design improvements. Athena, which has a taller, slimmer profile than Blue Ghost and stands about as tall as an adult giraffe, is set to touch down at Mons Mouton, making it the southernmost lunar landing attempt in history.
Athena carries a diverse set of payloads, including three rovers, a drill designed to search for lunar ice, and a groundbreaking hopping drone engineered to navigate the Moon’s rugged landscape.
NASA’s Growing Fleet of Private Moon Landers
Landing on the Moon remains a high-risk challenge, as the lack of an atmosphere means that parachutes are ineffective. Instead, landers must precisely control their descent using thrusters to ensure a safe touchdown.
Until Intuitive Machines’ first successful mission in February, only five national space agencies had accomplished soft lunar landings—the Soviet Union, the United States, China, India, and Japan, in that order.
Now, NASA is expanding its private Moon missions under the $2.6 billion Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, aiming to make such endeavors routine.
However, these missions come amid speculation that NASA could scale back or even cancel its ambitious Artemis program—the initiative to send astronauts back to the Moon—in favor of prioritizing Mars exploration, a major focus for former President Donald Trump and his close advisor, SpaceX founder Elon Musk.
For now, with Blue Ghost’s historic landing and Athena’s upcoming arrival, private lunar exploration is entering an exciting new era.
