Firefly’s Blue Ghost Lander Makes Historic Touchdown On Lunar Surface

Janet Petroadministrator

This incredible achievement demonstrates how NASA and American companies are leading the way in space exploration for the benefit of all." ... We have already learned many lessons – and the technological and science demonstrations onboard Firefly’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 will improve our ability to not only discover more science, but to ensure the safety of our spacecraft instruments for future human exploration – both in the short term and long term.”

NASA acting Administrator Janet Petro said

On behalf of our entire team, I want to thank NASA for entrusting Firefly as their lunar delivery provider,

said Jason Kim, CEO of Firefly Aerospace

You all stuck the landing,

said Blue Ghost chief engineer Will Coogan during a livestream from the flight operations room

We're baaack! Blue Ghost has landed, safely delivering 10 NASA scientific investigations and tech demos that will help us learn more about the lunar environment and support future astronauts on the Moon and Mars."

NASA said in a post on X, formerly Twitter

Our team, of course, did the logical thing and looked at all the missions before us, but our design was unique to Firefly. It's a successful design, and you look at past designs and past designs that were successful, (they) look very similar—short and squatty."

Firefly's CEO Jason Kim said

Congratulations Firefly Aerospace for Blue Ghost's Mission 1 successful Moon landing today!"

The 93-year-old marked the second time a privately built spacecraft has reached the lunar sphere on X, formerly Twitter, saying

The lander has really behaved well,

Blue Ghost's program manager Ray Allensworth said on a live webcast from mission control in Austin, Texas

We're on the moon,

Mission Control reported ... adding the

Janet Petroadministrator

We're going to be putting America first, we're making America proud, we're doing this for the US citizens,

said acting NASA director Janet Petro

T-2 hours until #BlueGhost performs a Descent Orbit Insertion and begins her trajectory towards our final destination: the Moon's Mare Crisium. This 19-second burn will be performed on the far side of the Moon in a planned comms blackout. Once we regain signal about 20 minutes after the burn, our #GhostRiders will conduct a health check to confirm the road to Mare Crisium is clear,

Firefly Aerospace had said in an X post a while ago

Blue Ghost is ready to take the wheel!"

In a post on X on Saturday, Firefly stated

Blue Ghost is slated to touch down near Mare Crisium, in the northeast quadrant on the near side of the Moon, as part of NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative and Artemis campaign to establish a long-term lunar presence,

NASA said

We did do two hazard avoidance maneuvers on the way down — that tells us that our software did work exactly as it needed to,

she told reporters

Once in a blue-moon long time ago, these type of lunar landers took billions of dollars and countries behind (them) to land on the moon,

he said in a pre-launch interview with CBS News

One of these days, we're going to get there in terms of the commercial aspects of the moon,

Kim said

One of the core purposes of the CLPS program with NASA is to be a precursor to Artemis, which is obviously sending humans back to the moon,

said Ray Allensworth, Firefly's spacecraft program director

This is Firefly Aerospace that's gonna land on the moon at fractions of the cost on a fixed-price contract, and doing it with the latest commercial technology,

he said