From Launch to Landing, Firefly Aerospace Does Not Disappoint

With all the buzz around Mars from Elon Musk and the new administration, the moon has been largely ignored. Despite this, NASA’s objective remains to establish a permanent settlement on the lunar surface; a complex and expensive goal. Enter CLPS, or the Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative, which aims to hand the reins of robotic moon missions to private companies like Firefly Aerospace, who just pulled off a lunar landing for a fraction of the cost of a traditional NASA mission.

To date, there have been four missions to launch under CLPS. Firstly, Astrobotic’s Peregrine Mission One, which launched in January 2024 but quickly encountered technical problems and was unable to land. Intuitive Machines launched second, just over a month later, but tipped over just after touchdown. Over a year later, they would fly a second mission which ended largely the same way.

That leaves Texas based Firefly Aerospace, which launched its first mission on January 15, 2025, aboard a Falcon 9 rocket and slowly began its voyage to the moon. 

Falcon 9 rocket carrying Firefly’s Blue Ghost and iSpace’s Hakuto-R lunar landers launches into orbit from the Kennedy Space Center. Photo by Ashton Guitard

During the mission, the lander, named Blue Ghost, performed a number of system checks and tests in order to verify that all systems on board were functioning nominally. After remaining in orbit around Earth for several weeks, Blue Ghost put itself on a trajectory to encounter the Moon. Four days later, they arrived in lunar orbit, where they shared beautiful imagery of the lunar surface as they flew just miles above.

Blue Ghost in lunar orbit. This image was taken approximately 100km above the surface. Image Photo by Firefly Aerospace

With all systems go, in the early morning hours of March 2, Blue Ghost performed a deorbit burn, slowing the vehicle down so that it would effectively fall to the surface. During the descent, the lander burned its engines for 9 minutes, reducing its velocity by several thousand kilometers per hour, bringing it to a safe speed just a few hundred meters above the surface. After scanning its surroundings and avoiding two obstacles during the final moments of flight, Blue Ghost successfully landed on the surface of the moon. 

Not long after touchdown, Firefly held a press conference, not long after which they unveiled one of the first images they received from the lander. It shows the lunar landscape and the Earth in the sky, but most importantly, it shows a shadow. That shadow is a testament to the blood, sweat, and dreams of countless innovators who worked for years to deliver a small piece of themselves, and of humanity, to the moon.

Blue Ghost’s shadow cast onto the lunar surface shortly after landing. Earth is also visible in the sky. Photo by Firefly Aerospace

Texas Congressman Brian Babin, who serves as the chairman of the House Committee on Space and Technology, said of the achievement, “[Firefly’s] success is a major step in America’s return to the Moon and a milestone for our commercial sector, reinforcing U.S. leadership in space”.

This moment marked a well-needed success for the CLPS initiative. After the failure and semi-failure of the other three missions, the fact that Firefly successfully landed on their first ever attempt (the first private company to do so), bodes well for the future of NASA’s lunar exploration program.