At approximately 3:34 am EST yesterday (March 2), the Texas-based Firefly Aerospace became the second private space company to land on the Moon and the first to ever do so without toppling over. Eight years ago, it wasn’t even a feasible company. The historic landing marks a remarkable turnaround for a company that has faced lawsuits, a forced ownership turnover and was resurrected from bankruptcy not too long ago. “Firefly is literally and figuratively over the Moon,” said Jason Kim, the company’s CEO, in a statement.
Firefly’s Blue Ghost lunar lander touched down softly in the Moon’s Mare Crisium basin, located next to a volcanic feature known as the Mons Latreille. “You all stuck the landing,” declared Will Coogan, Blue Ghost’s chief engineer, on a livestream of the landing—an announcement that was met with an eruption of cheers in the company’s mission control room.
The landing caps a 45-day journey for Blue Ghost, which was launched into orbit by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center on Jan. 15. The lander, which travelled more than 2.8 million miles to the Moon, will spend the next two weeks conducting various surface operations on behalf of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, which taps private ventures for lunar missions.
A vacuum that sucks up Moon dust and X-ray imager examining the impacts of solar wind and the Earth’s magnetic field were among the 10 payloads Blue Ghost carried to the Moon for the agency. Firefly’s lander—which has already snapped selfies with Earth—is additionally expected to capture images of a total eclipse and lunar sunset later this month.
Firefly Aerospace’s challenging journey
Shooting for the Moon wasn’t always in reach for Firefly, which was established in 2014. The company ran into financial trouble three years later after an investor backed out and Tom Markusic, Firefly’s then-CEO and a former aerospace engineer for Virgin Galactic (SPCE), SpaceX and Blue Origin, was sued by Virgin Galactic for allegedly stealing trade secrets.
Firefly filed for bankruptcy in 2017 but was rescued by Max Polyakov, a Ukrainian tech entrepreneur who acquired its assets at auction and reportedly poured more than $200 million into reviving the company. However, Polyakov’s ownership of Firefly came to an end in 2022 after the U.S. government, citing potential national security concerns, forced him to sell his share to the private investment firm AE Industrial Partners. Last year, Polyakov was released from government conditions and obligations preventing him from investing in the U.S. space and defense industry.
Amid tumultuous times, Firefly managed to continue developing spacecrafts and landing valuable government contracts. In 2021, Blue Ghost won its CLPS contract with NASA, worth roughly $100 million. The company has more CLPS deliveries coming down the pipeline, with its Blue Ghost landers scheduled to land on the far side of the Moon next year and in the Moon’s Gruithuisen Domes volcanic region in 2028. Outside of its lunar landers, Firefly develops small and mid-sized robots and an orbital vehicle known Elytra.
Firefly’s lunar landing is NASA’s second CLPS mission. The first took place last year, when Intuitive Machines—another Texas-based private space company—sent its lander to the Moon in February 2024. However, the company’s lander toppled over after touching down, limiting aspects of the mission.
Intuitive Machines will get another shot at success later this week, with a second lander expected to reach the Moon by March 6. And yet another lunar lander, this time from Japanese company ispace, could join Blue Ghost in three months time. iSpace’s spacecraft’s actually hitched a ride with Firefly’s Blue Ghost on the same Falcon 9 in January, but it is taking a longer and less fuel-intensive route to the Moon.
