The Blue Ghost lunar lander, developed by the American company Firefly, successfully landed on the lunar surface, becoming the first private spacecraft to achieve a fully successful soft landing on the moon.
The first private spacecraft to land on the moon last year, developed by Intuitive Machines, was damaged during landing and only partially functional. In contrast, Blue Ghost is in good condition and functioning well, according to the company. The lander carries scientific experiments from NASA and other organizations, primarily for geological research and the study of lunar dust.
"We have confirmation #BlueGhost stuck the landing!" the company tweeted last week after it landed. "Firefly just became the first commercial company in history to achieve a fully successful moon landing. This small step on the moon represents a giant leap in commercial exploration." NASA also congratulated Firefly in a tweet following the landing.
Shortly after touchdown, the lander transmitted its first selfie from the lunar surface.
The lander was launched about a month and a half ago from Florida aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. After spending several weeks in Earth orbit, it followed a fast trajectory to the moon and entered lunar orbit about two weeks ago. The landing was successfully carried out in the Mare Crisium region, slightly north of the lunar equator on the near side of the moon.
Since the landing occurred during the lunar morning, the lander is expected to receive about two weeks (Earth time) of continuous sunlight, providing solar energy to power its scientific instruments.
From Israeli lander Beresheet to Blue Ghost
Blue Ghost was launched as part of NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) program, which funds lunar missions by private companies. In return, these missions conduct experiments, research and technology demonstrations for NASA, supporting the broader Artemis program, which aims to land humans on the Moon again by the end of the decade.
The lander, approximately 3.5 meters in diameter, bears some resemblance to the Israeli spacecraft Beresheet – and not by coincidence. Firefly collaborated on its development, at least in an early iteration, with Israel Aerospace Industries’ (IAI) Space Division, which acquired the intellectual property of the Israeli spacecraft in exchange for its share in funding the project. However, Blue Ghost is significantly larger and heavier than Beresheet, with a dry mass (excluding fuel) approaching 500 kilograms — three times that of Beresheet.
The scientific payloads aboard Blue Ghost include, among other things, an experiment examining how lunar dust adheres to different surface materials, a mobile laboratory for analyzing dust composition, and an experiment on using an electric field to repel dust. The lander also carries a radiation-hardened computer for testing its performance in space, an X-ray camera to measure the solar wind, and a drill designed to insert a thermometer up to three meters into the lunar surface. Temperature measurements at different depths will help researchers better understand the moon's heat conductivity and its geological history. Another experiment will measure magnetic fields near the lunar surface, similar to the scientific mission carried out by Beresheet 1.
