Blue Ghost Mission 1
View from Blue Ghost M1 on the Moon | |
| Names |
|
|---|---|
| Mission type | Lunar landing |
| Operator | Firefly Aerospace |
| COSPAR ID | 2025-010A |
| SATCAT no. | 62716 |
| Mission duration | 2 months and 1 day |
| Spacecraft properties | |
| Spacecraft type | Blue Ghost |
| Manufacturer | Firefly Aerospace |
| Launch mass | 1,517 kg (3,344 lb) |
| BOL mass | 1,469 kg (3,239 lb) |
| Dry mass | 469 kg (1,034 lb) |
| Dimensions | Height: 2 m (6 ft 7 in) Width: 3.5 m (11 ft) |
| Power | 400 watts |
| Start of mission | |
| Launch date | January 15, 2025, 1:11:39 am EST (06:11:39 UTC) |
| Rocket | Falcon 9 Block 5 (B1085‑5), Flight 425 |
| Launch site | Kennedy, LC-39A |
| Contractor | SpaceX |
| End of mission | |
| Last contact | March 16, 2025, 23:25 UTC |
| Lunar lander | |
| Landing date | March 2, 2025, 08:34 UTC |
| Landing site | Mare Crisium near Mons Latreille 18°34′N 61°49′E / 18.56°N 61.81°E |
Mission insignia | |
Blue Ghost Mission 1 was a robotic Moon landing mission by Firefly Aerospace (Firefly) that launched on January 15, 2025, and soft-landed on the lunar surface on March 2, 2025, at 08:34 UTC. Firefly thus became the first commercial company to complete a fully successful soft landing on the Moon. As part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, the mission delivered ten scientific and technological experiments to advance future human exploration under the Artemis program. About 5 hours after lunar sunset on March 16, 2025, the solar-powered lander's batteries depleted and communications were lost. The mission's end was officially declared at 23:25 UTC.
The Blue Ghost lunar lander was launched from Kennedy Space Center using a SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket that also carried the Hakuto-R Mission 2 lander. It delivered 10 payloads to Mare Crisium, a 500-kilometer-wide (310 mi) lunar basin. Its 60-day mission aimed to analyze lunar regolith, study geophysical characteristics, and investigate interactions between the solar wind and Earth's magnetic field. The lander's scientific payloads included a regolith adherence characterization experiment, a lunar retroreflector for precision distance measurements, a radiation-tolerant computer, thermal exploration probes, and more.
All 10 NASA payloads (including GNSS tracking, heliospheric X-ray imaging, magnetotelluric sounder, and a radiation‑tolerant computer) powered on, collected data, and transmitted over 110 GB back to Earth.