WATCH: Firefly's Blue Ghost lands on the Moon, marking a new era for private spaceflight

In a predawn milestone for commercial space exploration, Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lunar lander touched down on the Moon at 3:34 a.m. Eastern Standard Time today (Sunday), becoming only the second private spacecraft to achieve a soft landing on the lunar surface. The uncrewed mission, which set down near Mare Crisium—a vast volcanic basin visible from Earth—ushers in a new chapter of American lunar ambitions, driven not by government agencies but by private enterprise.

The landing, confirmed by Firefly’s mission control in Cedar Park, Texas, was met with applause and quiet relief from engineers who had monitored the spacecraft’s descent through the lunar night. “This is a moment we’ve been working toward for years,” said Eric Salwan, Firefly’s director of commercial business development, in a statement shortly after the touchdown. “The Moon is open for business, and we’re proving it can be done affordably and reliably.”

Blue Ghost’s journey was part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, a program designed to outsource lunar deliveries to private companies as the agency prepares for its Artemis missions, which aim to return astronauts to the Moon later this decade. Under a $101.5 million contract, Firefly delivered a suite of 10 scientific instruments and technology demonstrations to the lunar surface, including tools to study the Moon’s soil, test drilling techniques, and measure radiation levels—data that will inform future human landings.

The success stands in contrast to the spotty record of private lunar attempts. Before Sunday, only Intuitive Machines, another American company, had managed a soft landing, with its Odysseus spacecraft reaching the Moon in February 2024 despite a tumultuous descent that left it tilted but functional. Other efforts, like those from Israel’s SpaceIL in 2019 and Japan’s ispace in 2023, ended in crashes. Since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, no American spacecraft had landed intact and upright on the Moon until these recent private ventures began rewriting the script.

For Firefly, a relatively small player in the aerospace industry, the achievement is a leap forward. Founded in 2014 and based in Texas, the company has positioned itself as a nimble innovator, focusing on cost-effective solutions for space access. Its Alpha rocket, which launched Blue Ghost into space, is designed to carry small payloads at a fraction of the cost of traditional launch systems. The lunar lander itself, standing about six feet tall and resembling a hexagonal prism, was built to withstand the harsh conditions of space travel while delivering precise results.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson hailed the landing as a triumph for the agency’s public-private partnership model. “Firefly’s success today is a testament to American ingenuity and the power of collaboration,” he said in a statement. “These missions are laying the groundwork for sustainable exploration and, ultimately, a human return to the Moon.”

The instruments now active on Mare Crisium will operate for at least two weeks, powered by solar panels, before the lunar night—14 Earth days of frigid darkness—silences them. Among the payloads is a retroreflector, a device that can bounce laser beams back to Earth, enabling precise measurements of the Moon’s distance for years to come. Another experiment, a compact X-ray imager, will analyze lunar soil composition, offering clues about the Moon’s volcanic past.

For all its technical prowess, the mission carries broader implications. The CLPS program, with its fixed-price contracts, shifts risk from taxpayers to companies, a strategy that has drawn both praise and skepticism. Critics argue it gambles on unproven players, while supporters see it as a necessary evolution in an era of tightening budgets. Firefly’s success may bolster the case for the latter.

As dawn broke over Texas, the Firefly team was already looking ahead. The company has plans for additional lunar missions, including one slated for 2026, and aims to expand its Alpha rocket’s reach to deeper space. For now, though, the focus remains on Blue Ghost, a small machine casting a long shadow across the lunar plains—and perhaps across the future of spaceflight itself.