
SpaceX successfully launched two private lunar landers, Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost and ispace's Resilience, aboard a Falcon 9 rocket on January 15 from NASA's Kennedy Space Center.
The Falcon 9’s first stage successfully landed on the droneship 8.5 minutes after liftoff, while the second stage deployed Blue Ghost into a lunar transfer orbit 65 minutes after launch, followed by Resilience almost 27 minutes later.
Blue Ghost, Firefly’s first lunar mission under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) programme, is carrying 10 NASA payloads to study lunar regolith and the environment, supporting future Artemis missions.
The lander is set to spend up to 25 days in Earth orbit for system checks before embarking on an exciting four-day journey to the moon, with a planned landing in Mare Crisium (“Sea of Crises”) for research during one lunar day.
Resilience, developed by ispace, is taking a more energy-efficient route to the moon and is expected to land in Mare Frigoris (“Sea of Cold”) in up to 4.5 months. It is set to deploy a microrover called Tenacious to gather regolith samples under a NASA agreement.
This launch marks Firefly's first moon mission and ispace's second attempt, following the failure of its Hakuto-R lander, which crashed in 2023. Blue Ghost sets a record with its 10 CLPS payloads, while Resilience brings valuable exploration capabilities.
This mission kicks off a busy year of lunar exploration, with Intuitive Machines planning its IM-2 mission in February, followed by additional moon landings from Astrobotic and other private companies aiming to advance lunar science and exploration.