Private lander Blue Ghost successfully touches down on moon with NASA equipment

“You all stuck the landing. We’re on the moon,” Firefly’s Will Coogan, chief engineer for the lander, reported, according to AP.

First private lander to land upright

Blue Ghost’s upright and stable landing makes Firefly Aerospace the first private company to place a spacecraft on the moon without crashing or toppling over. Even national space agencies have struggled with lunar landings, with only five countries achieving success: Russia, the US, China, India, and Japan.

Staff at the Mission Control outside Austin, Texas celebrating as lunar lander Blue Ghost touches down on the moon. (Photo: NASA/Firefly Aerospace via AP)

Just 30 minutes after landing, Blue Ghost began transmitting images from the lunar surface. The first image, a selfie, was somewhat obscured by the sun’s glare, while the second showed Earth as a distant blue dot against the blackness of space.

NASA’s commercial lunar programme

LIVE: Leadership from NASA and @Firefly_Space recap the Blue Ghost Moon landing, which occurred on March 2 at 3:34am ET (0834 UTC). https://t.co/XQDTptjw7h

— NASA (@NASA) March 2, 2025

Blue Ghost is part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, which aims to stimulate lunar commerce through private-sector competition. NASA paid $101 million for the delivery of ten scientific and technological experiments aboard the lander, with an additional $44 million for the equipment itself.

Firefly’s Ray Allensworth confirmed that the lander avoided hazards such as boulders and landed within the designated 328-foot (100-meter) target zone.

The mission is expected to last for two weeks before the lunar night halts operations.

Scientific objectives

Moon’s surface and Earth are visible on the horizon, Blue Ghost’s solar panel, X-band antenna, left, and LEXI payload at right. (Photo: NASA/Firefly Aerospace via AP)

The lander carries a vacuum to collect lunar soil samples and a drill capable of measuring temperatures up to 10 feet (3 meters) below the surface. It also includes a device designed to eliminate lunar dust, a significant challenge faced by NASA’s Apollo astronauts, who struggled with the abrasive particles clinging to their spacesuits and equipment.

On its way to the moon, Blue Ghost captured detailed images of Earth and later sent back high-resolution photos of the moon’s cratered surface, reported AP.

Additionally, an onboard receiver successfully acquired signals from the US GPS and European Galileo constellations, an advancement that could improve navigation for future lunar explorers.

More private landers on the way

Blue Ghost’s landing sets the stage for more commercial missions.

Houston-based Intuitive Machines plans to land its second lunar lander on Thursday, targeting a location near the moon’s south pole. Despite tipping over on its first mission last year, the company successfully returned the US to the lunar surface for the first time since the Apollo programme ended in 1972, as per AP.

POV you’re a Moon lander

This is the first image from @Firefly_Space‘s Blue Ghost Mission 1, which touched down today, delivering 10 NASA instruments to the lunar surface. https://t.co/U8Ey9efX6k pic.twitter.com/UajVHzCaXf

— NASA (@NASA) March 2, 2025

Another lander, built by the Japanese company ispace, is three months away from its lunar attempt. Sharing a rocket ride with Blue Ghost on January 15, ispace’s lander is taking a slower, more circuitous route. The company’s first lander crashed in 2023, adding to the numerous wreckages on the moon from failed landing attempts over the decades.

NASA’s chief scientist, Nicky Fox, emphasized the importance of maintaining a steady pace of two private lunar landings per year, acknowledging that some missions may fail.

“It really does open up a whole new way for us to get more science to space and to the moon,” Fox said, according to AP.

(With inputs from AP)