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A private space mission has landed on the Moon as a new space age sees a growing fleet of companies scramble to reach the lunar surface.
Texas start-up Firefly Aerospace became only the second commercial space company to land on the Moon after its robotic craft Blue Ghost touched down on Sunday.
The mission, in partnership with Nasa, landed at 8.34am UK time on a dark basaltic plain called the Mare Crisium, or the Sea of Crises, near a solitary lunar mountain called Mons Latreille. Cheers erupted from Firefly workers and spectators at a viewing party at the company’s headquarters after the flight controller announced: “We’re on the Moon!”
Blue Ghost’s two week flight began with a launch on Jan 15 and it will now begin 14 days – equivalent to a single lunar day – of surface operations, armed with Nasa tools and equipment. These include a drill that will bury into the Moon’s surface to monitor its temperature.
On March 14, it is expected to capture high-definition imagery of a total eclipse when the Earth blocks the sun above the Moon’s horizon.
Two days later, it will capture the lunar sunset and collect data on the “lunar horizon glow”, a phenomenon first documented by Apollo 17 when lunar dust particles levitate and scatter the light. Then, it will operate for several hours during the lunar night.
Blue Ghost is on a mission called Ghost Riders in the Sky, named after a song popularised by Johnny Cash about a vision of the Devil’s red-eyed cattle herd, which damned cowboys must chase for eternity on horses snorting flames.
Houston-based Intuitive Machines became the first private company to land a robotic spacecraft on the Moon in 2024. However, the Intuitive Machines mission was forced to end early after its lander fell over.
Blue Ghost, by contrast, appeared to land upright as planned on the Moon’s near side, which can be seen from Earth with the naked eye.
The lander’s mission has been partly funded by Nasa as the agency renews efforts to put humans on the Moon for the first time since 1972. Nasa is paying Firefly $101.5m (£80.3m) for this mission under its Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) programme, which will pay as much as $2.6bn to private companies for lunar operations.
The plan has been criticised by Elon Musk, the chief executive of SpaceX who is also Donald Trump’s government efficiency tsar. Mr Musk called the Moon “a distraction” in January, writing on his social media platform X: “We’re going straight to Mars.”
Despite the billionaire’s distain, a growing number of private companies are targeting Moon missions. Blue Ghost is one of three landers planning to reach it in the next two months. Intuitive Machines will make a second attempt on March 6, while Japanese company Ispace has plans to send a craft in April, after a previous failed attempt in 2023.