Firefly Aerospace is on the brink of its Blue Ghost Mission 1 lunar landing, set for March 2 at 3:34 AM EST. Targeting Mons Latreille in Mare Crisium, it aims to become the second private lander to touch down on the Moon, following Intuitive Machines’ IM-2 mission. Launched on January 15 via SpaceX, the lander carries ten scientific instruments and is designed to operate for a lunar day. Blue Ghost will capture crucial lunar data, including the effects of sunlight on lunar dust. These missions form part of NASA’s CLPS program, promoting private lunar exploration.
After an extensive journey through space, a US company is mere hours away from executing an ambitious lunar landing attempt — its spacecraft on the brink of becoming the second private lander to accomplish this if it succeeds.
Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 aims for a landing no earlier than 3:34 am US Eastern time (0834 GMT) on Sunday, targeting a location near Mons Latreille, a volcanic formation in Mare Crisium on the Moon’s northeastern near side.
“Blue Ghost is ready to take control!” the company announced on X Saturday evening, noting that flight controllers had just initiated a crucial maneuver to lower the spacecraft’s orbit.
Affectionately dubbed “Ghost Riders in the Sky,” this mission follows just over a year after the inaugural commercial lunar landing and is part of a NASA initiative with the industry to reduce expenses and support Artemis, the program focused on returning astronauts to the Moon.
Equipped with a suite of @NASA science and technology, @Firefly_Space is set to land the Blue Ghost lunar lander on the Moon no earlier than 3:34 a.m. EST on Sunday, March 2.
Live coverage will commence on NASA+ approximately 75 minutes before touchdown >> https://t.co/7VZfUW0mjK pic.twitter.com/yqVe0OB48v
— NASA Marshall (@NASA_Marshall) February 28, 2025
The golden lander, comparable in size to a hippopotamus, took off on January 15 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, capturing breathtaking images of Earth and the Moon throughout its journey. It shared its launch with a lander from a Japanese company, which is scheduled to attempt a landing in May.
Blue Ghost carries ten scientific instruments, including a lunar soil analyzer, a radiation-resistant computer, and an experiment aimed at evaluating the feasibility of utilizing the current global satellite navigation system for lunar navigation.
Engineered to function for an entire lunar day (about 14 Earth days), Blue Ghost is anticipated to obtain high-definition imagery of a total eclipse on March 14, when Earth obscures the Sun from the Moon’s horizon.
On March 16, it will document a lunar sunset, providing valuable insights into how dust rises above the surface under solar influence — producing the enigmatic lunar horizon glow first observed by Apollo astronaut Eugene Cernan.
Hopping drone
Blue Ghost’s arrival will be succeeded on March 6 by Intuitive Machines’ IM-2 mission, featuring its lander named Athena.
In February 2024, Intuitive Machines marked a milestone by becoming the first private entity to accomplish a soft lunar landing — also the first US landing since the crewed Apollo 17 mission of 1972.
Nevertheless, this success was marred by an incident: the lander descended too rapidly, tipped over upon impact, and was unable to generate sufficient solar power, ultimately cutting the mission short.
This time around, the company claims to have implemented significant enhancements to the hexagonally shaped lander, which boasts a taller, slimmer design compared to Blue Ghost, standing at approximately the height of an adult giraffe.
Athena launched on Wednesday aboard a SpaceX rocket, taking a more direct trajectory towards Mons Mouton — the southernmost lunar landing site ever attempted.
Its payloads include three rovers, a drill for ice exploration, and the highlight of the mission: a pioneering hopping drone designed to survey the Moon’s rugged landscape.
NASA’s private Moon fleet
Landing on the Moon poses unique challenges due to the absence of an atmosphere, rendering parachutes ineffective.
Consequently, spacecraft must depend on precisely controlled thruster burns to decelerate their descent.
Prior to Intuitive Machines’ first successful mission, only five national space agencies had completed this achievement: the Soviet Union, the United States, China, India, and Japan, in that order.
Now, the United States is striving to make private lunar missions commonplace through NASA’s $2.6 billion Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program.
The missions unfold during a fragile period for NASA, amid concerns that it may scale back or even cancel its Artemis lunar program in favor of prioritizing Mars exploration — a key objective for both President Donald Trump and his close advisor, SpaceX founder Elon Musk.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)