Blue Ghost: A New Chapter in Private Moon Landings

In a remarkable achievement for private space exploration, a spacecraft named Blue Ghost has gracefully landed on the moon, a milestone accomplished by only one other private enterprise in the annals of space travel. For the past two weeks, the robotic lander navigated an orbit around the moon, meticulously preparing for its ambitious descent. Engineered by Firefly Aerospace, a Texas-based company, this successful mission has marked a significant triumph. At precisely 3:36 a.m. ET, the Blue Ghost landed, igniting celebrations in the control room and among spectators gathered around Firefly’s headquarters in Austin.

With this landing, Blue Ghost has become the second private vehicle to successfully reach the lunar surface. Previously, in February 2024, another Texas company, Intuitive Machines, making headlines with its Odysseus lander as it executed a suspenseful descent near the moon’s south pole. Firefly Aerospace’s recent achievement heralds the start of a series of robotic lunar missions set for 2025. Just this week, Intuitive Machines embarked on their second lunar mission, eyeing a moon landing around March 6.

The Blue Ghost’s destination is a vast, 350-mile-wide basin on the moon’s near side, speculated by NASA to have formed due to an ancient asteroid collision. This endeavor is part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative, a collaborative venture between public and private sectors aimed at delivering scientific experiments, technological equipment, and other payloads to the lunar surface.