Firefly says it is the first private company to make a ‘fully successful’ soft landing on the moon.
Published On 2 Mar 2025
Firefly Aerospace, a United States-based private space company, has successfully landed its Blue Ghost spacecraft on the moon for a two-week research mission amid a race between a handful of private firms.
The touchdown took place at 3: 35am US East Coast time (08: 35 GMT) on Sunday in the Mare Crisium region, a prominent lunar basin visible from Earth.
Firefly becomes the second private firm to achieve a moon landing with the company declaring itself the first to make a “fully successful” soft landing.
Houston-based Intuitive Machines had a lopsided hard landing last year with its Odysseus lunar lander, which came out mostly intact but many of its onboard instruments were damaged.
The Firefly mission is part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services programme, which seeks to leverage private industry to support the agency’s return to the moon. Blue Ghost carried 10 scientific and technological payloads, including NASA instruments designed to s