A US company has successfully landed its spacecraft on the moon, marking only the second private mission to achieve the milestone – and the first to do so upright.
Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 touched down at 8.34am GMT near Mons Latreille, a volcanic formation in Mare Crisium on the moon’s north-eastern near side.
The mission control team in Austin, Texas, erupted in cheers as the firm’s CEO, Jason Kim, confirmed that the spacecraft was “stable and upright”.
That stood in stark contrast to the first private lunar landing in February 2024, from Texas-based Intuitive Machines, which toppled over upon arrival, dulling the achievement of being the first US moon touchdown since the crewed Apollo 17 mission of 1972.
Blue Ghost’s programme manager, Ray Allensworth, highlighted the precision of the landing, noting it touched down within 100 metres of its target.
“We did do two hazard avoidance manoeuvres on the way down – that tells us that our software did work exactly as it needed to,” she told reporters.
The first image from the lander revealed rugged, pockmarked terrain that Blue Ghost had to autonomously navigate during its final descent, slowing from thousands of miles an hour to just two mph.
The mission is part of a $2.6bn Nasa partnership that aims to cut costs and support Artemis, the programme designed to return astronauts to the moon.
The golden lander – about the size of a hippopotamus – launched on 15 January onboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, going on to capture spectacular footage of Earth and the moon during its 2.8m-mile journey.
It carries 10 instruments, including a lunar soil analyser, a radiation-tolerant computer and an experiment testing the feasibility of using the existing global satellite navigation system to navigate the moon.
It is expected to capture high-definition imagery of a total eclipse on 14 March, when Earth blocks the sun from the moon’s horizon, and on 16 March will record a lunar sunset, offering insights into how dust levitates under solar influence – creating the mysterious lunar horizon glow first documented by the Apollo astronaut Eugene Cernan.
Blue Ghost will be followed on 6 March by Intuitive Machines’ IM-2 mission, featuring its lander, Athena.
During the company’s first mission in February 2024, the lander touched down too fast, snagging a foot on the surface and toppling over, cutting operations short.
Landing on the moon is uniquely challenging due to its lack of atmosphere, making parachutes useless. Spacecraft must rely on precisely controlled thruster burns to slow their descent over hazardous terrain.
