Third U.S. Company To Attempt Lunar Landing

A commercial lunar lander carrying science experiments for NASA will attempt to touch down on the Moon’s surface on March 2, the third in a series of missions under the agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program.

Owned and operated by Firefly Aerospace, the lander, known as Blue Ghost, is aiming for a gentle touchdown in Mare Crisium, a large, dark basaltic plain in the northeast quadrant of the Moon’s near side. Mare Crisium was created by early volcanic eruptions that were flooded with basaltic lava more than 3 billion years ago.

Landing is planned for no earlier than 3:45 a.m. EST March 2. Blue Ghost, which carries 10 science payloads for NASA, is designed to operate for 14 days—one lunar day—and several hours into the lunar night.

If Blue Ghost sticks the landing, it will become the first U.S. company to make a fully successful touchdown on the lunar surface. The first to try was Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander, which launched aboard a United Launch Alliance Vulcan rocket on Jan. 8, 2024, as NASA’s first CLPS mission. Shortly after Peregrine separated from the rocket’s upper stage, a spacecraft propellant leak scotched a lunar landing attempt.

Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus’ Nova-C lander followed, with launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 on Feb. 13. Nine days later, the lander reached the lunar surface despite a problem with its laser rangefinders that caused it to descend too fast and tip over at touchdown, hampering its science operations.

“It’s incredible what each performer has done before us,” Firefly CEO Jason Kim tells Aviation Week. “We learned from that. It’s a really interesting market because all of us root for each other.”

Blue Ghost launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 on Jan. 15. On Feb. 13 the spacecraft conducted a 4-min. 13-sec. burn of its main engine and thrusters to drop into an elliptical orbit around the Moon. A second lunar orbit maneuver with a burn lasting 3 min. 18 sec. was conducted Feb. 18.

“This maneuver moved the lander from a high elliptical orbit to a much lower elliptical orbit around the Moon,” Firefly noted in a mission status report. “In this orbit, the team will experience planned rolling comms blackouts as Blue Ghost goes around the far side of the Moon. When on the near side, the team will continue to downlink data and finalize the plan for our next maneuver that will get Blue Ghost even closer to the lunar surface and keep us right on track for landing on March 2.”

A second lunar lander, owned by Japan’s iSpace, launched along with Firefly’s Blue Ghost and is making an independent flight to the Moon that will take another three-four months. The Resilience lander flew by the Moon on Feb. 15, coming as close as 5,220 mi. to the surface before continuing on a low-energy transfer orbit into deep space. When it returns toward the Moon in early May, iSpace plans to put Resilience into lunar orbit. The lander, which carries a miniature rover among its science and technology demonstration payloads, will then attempt to touch down near the center of Mare Frigoris.