• Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 successfully landed on the Moon on March 2.

• Carrying a suite of NASA science and technology, it landed near a volcanic feature called Mons Latreille within Mare Crisium, a more than 300-mile-wide basin located in the northeast quadrant of the Moon’s near side.

• The Blue Ghost lander is in an upright and stable configuration, and the successful Moon delivery is part of NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative and Artemis campaign. 

• Firefly becomes the second private firm to score a soft-landing on Moon, after Houston-based Intuitive Machines' Odysseus lander touched down in the Moon's south polar region in February 2024.

• Blue Ghost was launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on January 15.

• Throughout its 45-day journey to the Moon, Blue Ghost travelled more than 2.8 million miles, downlinked more than 27 GB of data, and supported several payload science operations. 

• Blue Ghost is named after a rare US species of fireflies.

• The size of a compact car, the four-legged Blue Ghost carried 10 scientific payloads.

• The Blue Ghost lander consists of a box-shaped structural framework and four landing legs. It has two decks for mounting equipment and 155 kg of payload capacity. Power is provided by solar panels that can be mounted on the sides of the spacecraft or deployed so they can be protruding above the top deck, depending on the orientation of the spacecraft and the Sun. 

• Firefly Aerospace is a space company with launch, lunar, and on-orbit services. Its headquarters is situated in  Texas. 

What will it do?

• The 10 NASA science and technology instruments aboard the lander will operate on the lunar surface for approximately one lunar day, or about 14 Earth days.

• During surface operations, the NASA instruments will test and demonstrate lunar subsurface drilling technology, regolith sample collection capabilities, global navigation satellite system abilities, radiation tolerant computing, and lunar dust mitigation methods. The data captured will benefit humanity by providing insights into how space weather and other cosmic forces impact Earth.  

• Before payload operations conclude, teams will aim to capture imagery of the lunar sunset and how lunar dust reacts to solar influences during lunar dusk conditions, a phenomenon first documented by former NASA astronaut Eugene Cernan on Apollo 17. Following the lunar sunset, the lander will operate for several hours into the lunar night.

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