Privately built Blue Ghost spacecraft poised to land on the moon

The Blue Ghost lunar lander, developed in partnership with NASA, aims to touch down on the moon early Sunday. Only one private company has accomplished the feat before.

A privately built spacecraft has successfully landed on the moon, a feat that only one other company has accomplished in spaceflight history.

The robotic lander, dubbed Blue Ghost, has been in orbit around the moon for roughly two weeks, preparing for its daring descent. Texas-based company Firefly Aerospace developed the spacecraft.

Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission One lander, seen here, will carry 10 NASA science and technology instruments to the Moon’s near side when it launches from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, as part of NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative and Artemis campaign.Firefly Aerospace / NASAThe spacecraft touched down at about 3:36 a.m. ET, with the control room erupting into cheers along with a crowd gathered for the landing event outside the Firefly headquarters in Austin, Texas.

Blue Ghost has become the second privately built vehicle to land on the moon successfully. In February 2024, another Texas-based company, Intuitive Machines, made history when its Odysseus lander pulled off a nail-biting touchdown near the moon’s south pole.

Firefly’s Blue Ghost lunar lander captured a selfie with Earth.Firefly AerospaceFirefly Aerospace’s landing is the first in a flurry of robotic missions to the moon in 2025. Earlier this week, Intuitive Machines launched its second lander into space, with a targeted moon landing on or around March 6. And a lander and tiny rover developed by Japanese company ispace launched to the moon on the same rocket as Blue Ghost, but are taking a longer, less energy-intensive path and are expected to arrive in late May or early June.

https://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/moon-landing-blue-ghost-private-spacecraft-nasa-rcna193468

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