See the Striking New Images From the Blue Ghost Lunar Lander, Now the Second Private Spacecraft to Touch Down on the Moon

For only the second time in history, a private company’s lunar lander has successfully touched down on the moon—and the images it’s sent home are stunning.

Built by Texas-based Firefly Aerospace, the lander—named Blue Ghost—has had a long journey. Since it launched aboard a SpaceX rocket on January 15, the spacecraft traveled more than 2.8 million miles from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to Mare Crisium, a volcanic plain in the northeastern quadrant of the moon’s near side. Early on Sunday morning, the lander began its hour-long descent toward the surface, making contact at 3:34 a.m. Eastern time.

“Every single thing was clockwork, even when we landed,” said Firefly CEO Jason Kim during the company’s watch party, as Stephen Clark reports for Ars Technica. “We got some moon dust on our boots.”

Firefly Aerospace is now the second private company to accomplish a lunar landing and the first to land upright. Texas-based Intuitive Machines reached the moon last year, but its spacecraft named Odysseus tipped over onto its side as it touched down. Odysseus survived, despite the rocky landing, and carried out its mission successfully. In January 2024, American company Astrobotic also launched a lander, which suffered a fuel leak and did not reach the moon.

To inform the design of Blue Ghost, Firefly looked at previous missions. “Our team, of course, did the logical thing and looked at all the missions before us, but our design was unique to Firefly,” says Kim to Jackie Wattles at CNN. “It’s a successful design, and you look at past designs and past designs that were successful, (they) look very similar—short and squatty.” True to that description, the four-legged lander is 6.6 feet tall and 11.5 feet wide.

The mission is part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, an initiative that aims to work with private companies to send lunar devices into space at lower costs. Findings from these science experiments will inform the agency’s future Artemis missions that aim to return humans to the moon. Blue Ghost carries with it ten instruments, including a lunar soil analyzer, a radiation tolerant computer (RadPC) and an X-ray telescope. All the instruments are reportedly healthy.

“This incredible achievement demonstrates how NASA and American companies are leading the way in space exploration for the benefit of all,” says NASA acting administrator Janet Petro in a statement. “We have already learned many lessons—and the technological and science demonstrations onboard Firefly’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 will improve our ability to not only discover more science, but to ensure the safety of our spacecraft instruments for future human exploration—both in the short term and long term.”

Blue Ghost will spend about two weeks—or one lunar day—conducting its tests before its landing site on the moon plunges into night, after which the cold and harsh conditions will cause the lander to shut down.

Just before that, though, Blue Ghost is expected to capture an impressive phenomenon called the “lunar horizon glow.” Documented by astronaut Eugene Cernan on Apollo 17, this refers to an illuminated haze during lunar sunset. Scientists suggest it occurs because of lunar dust scattering light as the sun dips below the horizon.

“On March 16, Blue Ghost will then capture the lunar sunset, providing data on how lunar dust levitates due to solar influences and creates a lunar horizon glow,” Firefly writes in a statement. “Following the sunset, Blue Ghost will operate several hours into the lunar night and continue to capture imagery that observes how levitating dust behavior changes after the sunset.”

Blue Ghost was not the only lander slated to reach the moon this month. Intuitive Machines will soon have another go at a smooth lunar landing. Its second lander, Athena, launched on February 26 and is expected to reach the moon’s south polar region on March 6.

And Firefly’s next mission is already in the works for 2026, featuring a Blue Ghost lander and accompanying orbiting spacecraft called Elytra. That time, the company plans to touch down on the far side of the moon.