US spacecraft lands on moon in historic private mission

A US spacecraft has successfully landed on the Moon, marking only the second private mission to accomplish the feat — and the first to remain upright after touchdown.

Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 touched down at 3:34 a.m. Eastern Time (0834 GMT) Mar 2 near Mons Latreille, a volcanic formation in the Mare Crisium region on the Moon’s northeastern near side. The Texas-based company’s lander is part of a growing push by NASA and private industry to establish a sustainable lunar presence.

“You all stuck the landing; we’re on the Moon,” an engineer at mission control in Austin, Texas, announced as cheers erupted among the team.

A first image from the lander is expected soon, and Firefly CEO Jason Kim confirmed that the spacecraft is both "stable and upright" — a key distinction from the previous private lunar landing in February, which ended with the vehicle tipping over.

“We’re on the Moon!” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.

Mission to advance lunar exploration

Nicknamed “Ghost Riders in the Sky,” the mission is a collaboration between NASA and private industry, designed to reduce costs and support Artemis, the program aiming to return astronauts to the Moon.

The golden-hued lander, roughly the size of a hippopotamus, launched on January 15 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. It carries 10 scientific instruments, including a lunar soil analyzer, a radiation-tolerant computer, and an experiment testing whether global satellite navigation systems can be used to navigate the Moon’s surface.

Blue Ghost is expected to operate for a full lunar day (14 Earth days), capturing high-definition imagery of a total eclipse on March 14 and a lunar sunset on March 16. The latter could provide new insights into a mysterious phenomenon first observed by Apollo astronaut Eugene Cernan—the glowing dust seen hovering above the lunar horizon.

A surge in private lunar landings

Firefly’s milestone comes just days ahead of the anticipated March 6 arrival of Intuitive Machines' IM-2 mission, featuring its new Athena lander. The Houston-based company made history in February 2024 with the first-ever private lunar landing—also the first US landing since Apollo 17 in 1972. However, that mission suffered a setback when the lander tipped over, limiting its ability to generate solar power.

This time, Intuitive Machines has made key modifications to Athena, which features a taller, slimmer profile than Blue Ghost. The lander, roughly the height of an adult giraffe, will target Mons Mouton, marking the southernmost lunar landing ever attempted.

The mission’s payload includes three lunar rovers, an ice-searching drill, and a groundbreaking hopping drone designed to navigate the Moon’s rugged landscape.

NASA’s push for commercial lunar exploration

Landing on the Moon remains an immense technical challenge due to the lack of an atmosphere, which prevents the use of parachutes. Instead, landers must execute carefully controlled thruster burns to slow their descent.

Until Intuitive Machines’ success last month, only five national space agencies had ever accomplished a soft lunar landing: the Soviet Union, United States, China, India, and Japan. Now, NASA is working to make private Moon missions routine through its $2.6 billion Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program.

However, the timing is critical. NASA’s lunar ambitions face growing uncertainty, with speculation that the agency could scale back or even cancel Artemis in favor of prioritizing Mars exploration—a key goal championed by both former President Donald Trump and his close advisor, SpaceX founder Elon Musk.

For now, however, the latest successful Moon landing signals a new era of commercial space exploration—and a major step toward sustained lunar operations.