Firefly’s Blue Ghost Lander Is on the Moon. Here’s What to Expect Next

Following a 45-day journey to the Moon, Blue Ghost gently landed on the lunar surface this past weekend to begin its exploratory mission.  Here’s what we can expect over the coming days.

Firefly Aerospace’s successful touchdown marks a new era of frequent commercial trips to the Moon, paving the way for a long-term human presence on the lunar surface. Before we get too ahead of ourselves, however, we’ve got the ongoing mission to attend to.

The Texas company’s inaugural Blue Ghost mission, aptly named “Ghost Riders in the Sky,” pulled off a soft touchdown on the Moon on Sunday at 3:34 a.m. ET. Blue Ghost launched from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday, January 15, on board a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Texas-based Firefly Aerospace became the second company to land on the Moon, and the first to do it with its lander ending up in an upright position (Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus lander tipped over on its side after landing on the Moon in February 2024).

“Firefly is literally and figuratively over the Moon,” Jason Kim, CEO of Firefly Aerospace, said in a statement. “Our Blue Ghost lunar lander now has a permanent home on the lunar surface.” Blue Ghost landed in Mare Crisium, the site of an ancient asteroid impact once filled with basaltic lava. The lander pulled off its precision landing, touching down within the 328-foot (100-meter) target next to a volcanic feature called Mons Latreille, according to Firefly Aerospace. The company successfully communicated with its lander following touchdown.

Now that the hard part is over, the stationary lander will spend a full lunar day (or the equivalent of 14 days on Earth) exploring the dusty surface of the Moon. Blue Ghost is packed with 10 NASA instruments designed to probe the lunar surface and gather data to support future human missions to the Moon as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative. The NASA instruments are designed to test subsurface drilling on the Moon, regolith sample collection, a global navigation satellite system, and lunar dust mitigation methods, according to NASA.

“The science and technology we send to the Moon now helps prepare the way for future NASA exploration and long-term human presence to inspire the world for generations to come,” Nicky Fox, associate administrator for science at NASA, said in a statement. “We’re sending these payloads by working with American companies—which supports a growing lunar economy.”

Blue Ghost, in addition to supporting the NASA payload demos, will run through its own surface operations. The lander has a packed schedule of its own, with planned operations including lunar subsurface drilling, sample collection, X-ray imaging, and dust mitigation experiments, according to Firefly.

On March 14, Blue Ghost will attempt to capture high-definition imagery of a total eclipse from the Moon, with Earth wedging itself between the Sun and the Moon and blocking the star’s light above the horizon. Two days later, Blue Ghost will then attempt to capture a sunset from the surface of the Moon and collect data on how lunar dust levitates due to influences from the Sun. After the Sun sets, the lander will continue to snap imagery of the levitating lunar dust to observe how its behavior changes after sunset.

Incredibly, two more private landers are currently en route to the Moon (that’s never happened before). The Japanese company ispace’s Resilience lander hitched a ride on the same SpaceX rocket that launched Blue Ghost on its journey to the Moon. Resilience carried out a flyby of the Moon on February 15, and it’s gearing up for touchdown in April. Intuitive Machines’ Athena lander blasted off on February 26 and is scheduled to touch down on the Moon on Thursday, March 6.