In the early hours of Sunday morning, a robotic spacecraft from an American startup landed gently on the moon’s near side. The Blue Ghost lander, crafted by Firefly Aerospace, based in Cedar Park, Texas, successfully touched down at 3:34 a.m. Eastern time. The moment was celebrated in the flight operations room when Will Coogan, Blue Ghost’s chief engineer, announced, “You all stuck the landing. We’re on the moon.”
This achievement marked a significant milestone for Firefly, as lunar landings have posed challenges for many organizations. “We got some moon dust on our boots,” quipped Jason Kim, Firefly’s chief executive, underscoring the success of the mission.
In the 21st century, soft landing on the moon has been a challenge, with only China achieving it on the first try. Other attempts by India, Russia, an Israeli nonprofit, and a Japanese company ended in crashes. Last year, two landers — one from Japan’s JAXA and another from Houston-based Intuitive Machines — did land successfully but toppled over, limiting functionality. Intuitive Machines was the first private company to achieve a moon landing, and now, Firefly follows as the second.
Reflecting on past challenges, Ray Allensworth, who heads the Blue Ghost program, mentioned, “We’re lucky to not go first.” This sentiment points to the advantage of leveraging data from previous missions to fine-tune their navigation software, learning from others’ experiences to steer clear of earlier missteps.
Blue Ghost landed in Mare Crisium, a flat, lava-filled plain located in the moon’s northeastern quadrant. Its mission wasn’t just about the landing, though. The lander carried various experimental and scientific payloads, including ten for NASA. Among them were a drill for measuring heat flow, an electrodynamic dust shield, and an X-ray camera, all under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Service (CLPS) aiming for cost-effective lunar exploration. Firefly stands to receive $101.5 million from NASA if all payloads successfully reach the lunar surface.
Some might wonder about the early hour of the landing. This timing wasn’t arbitrary but rather dictated by the intersection of lunar daybreak and the mission’s solar panel requirements. As Ray Allensworth put it, “That’s just when that happens.” The mission is designed to span roughly 14 Earth days, lasting until the next lunar sunset.
So far, the journey to the moon has gone smoothly for Blue Ghost. After 25 days orbiting Earth, the spacecraft fired its engine to begin a four-day trip to the moon, entering lunar orbit on February 13. The mission has encountered minor issues but nothing significant, with mission controllers making real-time adjustments as needed. “Thermal alarms might go off,” explained Allensworth, referring to the need to monitor and manage the spacecraft’s conditions meticulously.
Meanwhile, another lunar lander, Resilience, built by Japan’s Ispace, shared the initial SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch with Blue Ghost. However, Resilience is on a slower, more fuel-efficient trajectory, expected to reach the moon in early May. While independent, this mission demonstrates the growing trend of collaborative and cost-effective space travel, a testament to innovative approaches in the competitive space sector.
