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Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lands on moon
A lunar lander made right here in Central Texas is now on the moon. The lander, built by Firefly Aerospace and known as Blue Ghost, landed early Sunday morning. FOX 7 Austin's Rudy Koski has more from the landing watch event in Cedar Park.
Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander aced a touchdown on the moon Sunday to deliver experiments and supplies for NASA.
The company’s Mission Control outside of Austin, Texas, confirmed the successful landing.
"You all stuck the landing. We’re on the moon," Firefly’s Will Coogan, chief engineer for the lander, reported.
What is the Blue Ghost lander?
Blue Ghost's first image from the moon (NASA/Firefly Aerospace)
The backstory:
Blue Ghost is a private lunar lander owned by Firefly Aerospace. It’s the latest in a string of companies looking to kickstart business on the moon ahead of astronaut missions.
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Blue Ghost — named after a rare U.S. species of fireflies — is a four-legged lander that stands 6 feet, 6 inches tall and 11 feet wide.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission One lander prepares for a launch to the Moon on January 14 from Launch Complex 39A at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida (NASA)
Launched in mid-January from Florida, the lander carried 10 experiments to the moon for NASA. The space agency paid $101 million for the delivery, plus $44 million for the science and tech on board. It’s the third mission under NASA’s commercial lunar delivery program, intended to ignite a lunar economy of competing private businesses while scouting around before astronauts show up later this decade.
What other companies are landing on the moon?
What's next:
Two other companies’ landers are hot on Blue Ghost’s heels, with the next one expected to join it on the moon later this week.
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Another lander — a tall and skinny 15-footer built and operated by Houston-based Intuitive Machines — is due to land on the moon Thursday. It’s aiming for the bottom of the moon, just 100 miles from the south pole. That’s closer to the pole than the company got last year with its first lander, which broke a leg and tipped over.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission One is on its way to the Moon as part of NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative. (NASA)
Despite the tumble, Intuitive Machines' lander put the U.S. back on the moon for the first time since NASA astronauts closed out the Apollo program in 1972.
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A third lander from the Japanese company ispace is still three months from landing. It shared a rocket ride with Blue Ghost from Cape Canaveral on Jan. 15, taking a longer, windier route. Like Intuitive Machines, ispace is also attempting to land on the moon for the second time. Its first lander crashed in 2023.
The moon is littered with wreckage not only from ispace, but dozens of other failed attempts over the decades.
The Source: This report includes information from The Associated Press.