Live updates: Firefly ‘Blue Ghost’ lunar lander touches down on the moon – CNN

• A robotic lunar lander built by Texas-based company Firefly has successfully landed on the moon, touching down around 2:34 a.m. CT (3:34 a.m. ET).

• The lander, called Blue Ghost, launched to orbit on a SpaceX rocket in January, spent some time in Earth’s orbit and had been maneuvering toward the moon ever since.

• Firefly has become only the second private-sector company ever to achieve a soft lunar landing. Several have failed in the past.

• Firefly is carrying out this mission as a contractor under NASA’s CLPS and Artemis programs, which aim to use robotic landers to scout the moon before humans return later this decade.

We’ve wrapped up our live coverage for the day. Read more about Blue Ghost’s moon landing success here or scroll through the posts below to relive the event as it unfolded.

Perhaps the most difficult, nail-biting stretch of Blue Ghost’s mission is over with. The vehicle is sitting on the moon’s near side, within an ancient crater filled with volcanic material.

Here’s what still lies ahead:

Jason Kim, Firefly’s CEO, said Firefly looked to prior lunar landing missions for guidance.

Houston-based Intuitive Machines, for example, became the first private-sector company ever to soft-land a vehicle on the moon with its IM-1 mission last year. But the vehicle did land tipped over on its side.

“Our team, of course, did the logical thing and looked at all the missions before us, but our design was unique to Firefly,” Kim said. “It’s a successful design, and you look at past designs and past designs that were successful, (they) look very similar — short and squatty.”

In recent years, there’s been a lot of focus on venturing to the south pole of the moon, where ice may be trapped in permanently shadowed lunar craters. The lunar south pole is a destination for future crewed Artemis missions, as well as robotic explorers.

But Blue Ghost and its suite of scientific instruments were intended to land elsewhere, said Dr. Nicola Fox, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.

“The moon is an incredible place for science,” Fox said. “We don’t want to go to the same place every single time because we want to learn more and more about the moon. It’s like going on vacation. You don’t want to go to the same place all the time. As we are preparing to send astronauts back, we want to make sure we understand all the areas, and we’ll still be characterizing it for astronaut safety, but we’re also looking at where the most interesting regions are.”

Fox also noted that the 10 instruments aboard Blue Ghost are “like a holisitic suite, perfectly chosen for the region we’re going to.”

The mission landed near an ancient volcanic feature called Mons Latreille, which lies on the far eastern edge of the moon’s visible face just north of the equator.

“You know your delivery service, you pick the place you want your package to go, and that’s just what we did Firefly,” Fox said.

Before concluding the news conference, Firefly Aerospace shared “one more incredible, breathtaking image” that Blue Ghost captured after landing on the lunar surface.

The lander’s shadow can be seen on the surface of the moon, with Earth visible above it.

Joel Kearns, the deputy associate administrator for exploration in NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, said that the dozen or so providers with the space agency’s CLPS program — under which Blue Ghost is operating — are all unique.

“We see very different technical approaches of the different companies that are doing this for the United States,” Kearns said. “One thing that distinguishes Firefly is that it was clear that they were extremely technical…very rigorous, technically from the get go.”

Firefly’s Blue Ghost program head Ray Allensworth added that the company ran through dozens of simulations.

“You do nominal scenarios. You do off-nominal scenarios,” Allensworth said, using the aerospace term for normal or on-target.

For example, Allensworth said, her team ran through how they would respond if a meteor hit one of Blue Ghost’s solar panels.

“You kind of make up all these scenarios, and you run through them, and it’s really to make sure that all the teams are actually operating like they did tonight,” she said.

Firefly’s Ray Allensworth said that — based on currently available data — Blue Ghost hit its mark on the lunar surface.

The vehicle needed to touch down within a 100-meter (330-foot) target touchdown site.

Allensworth also revealed that Blue Ghost conducted two “hazard avoidance” maneuvers during its final descent.

Those hazards included boulders and rocks, Allensworth said.

Blue Ghost is equipped with high-def cameras — so why didn’t the vehicle send a live broadcast of its harrowing descent?

Ray Allensworth, head of Firefly’s Blue Ghost program, just revealed the answer.

Mission control wanted to focus the vehicle’s communications bandwidth on delivering accurate real-time data, getting information about the spacecraft’s altitude and speed.

“Even though you might have the camera capability to do live streaming, it’s not always the most practical thing to do in the moment,” Allensworth said.
Ray Allensworth, @Firefly_Space Spacecraft Program Director, explains why it would not have been a practical use of resources to stream live from the spacecraft during Blue Ghost’s Moon landing. pic.twitter.com/bUhXDejbUI
Storied NASA astronaut Buzz Aldrin, who is 95, tuned into Sunday’s lunar touchdown.

Aldrin, who walked on the moon with Neil Armstrong during the Apollo 11 mission in 1969, offered his congratulations.

Firefly CEO Jason Kim said he saw the post. “That’s pretty amazing,” he remarked.
“Contact light, engine stop!” Congratulations FireFly Aerospace for Blue Ghost’s Mission 1 successful Moon landing today! It also marks a new milestone in the collaborations between NASA and private Space companies, as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS)… pic.twitter.com/Y5psA3qSu9
During a news briefing, officials debuted a second image captured by Blue Ghost from the lunar surface.

“In the background, you can see our home planet, that beautiful blue marble Earth,” said Firefly’s Trina Patterson.

Countries and companies worldwide are racing to the surface of the moon — for several critical reasons.

So far, China, India and Japan are the only nations to have soft-landed vehicles on the moon in the 21st century. But there are more than 100 lunar missions planned to take place before 2030, according to the European Space Agency.

Here’s why:

Each of Blue Ghost’s four feet were equipped with sensors that were designed to immediately confirm when they had touched lunar soil.

But when Blue Ghost made its touchdown, the webcast showed only three of the vehicle’s four landing legs confirmed contact.

Firefly’s Ray Allensworth, the program director for Blue Ghost, told CNN in an interview that there may be a benign explanation.

“I’m not 100% sure what happened on the fourth one,” Allensworth said.

“So there’s also a good chance that the software just ignored — threw the data out — from that sensor because maybe it tripped early. I’m not 100% sure,” she added, “we’d have to go back and look at the data.”

But it is abundantly clear that Blue Ghost is sitting upright, she noted.

Firefly CEO Jason Kim, speaking to CNN, said tonight’s success opens up a boundless wealth of opportunities for future Blue Ghost missions.

“Anything is possible,” he said. “We could take this technology and go to Mars.”

He is also looking forward to Firefly’s next lunar mission for NASA, which is already on the books and is slated to land a Blue Ghost vehicle on the far side of the moon.

So far, only China has sent a spacecraft there.

Kim said that Firefly has exciting new technology on deck for that feat.

A separate spacecraft for that mission, called Elytra, will be put in orbit around the moon to serve as a communications relay, beaming data between the spacecraft and Earth because Blue Ghost’s antennas won’t be able to point directly home.

“That orbiter is very exciting because we could put cameras on there, we could put other sensors on there, and now we can start creating a new category of mapping out the moon,” Kim said. “And so we’re really excited about doing that, because there’s a lot of government and science and commercial entities that want that data.”

During the lander’s space journey from Earth to the moon, Blue Ghost had captured the celestial bodies in various positions of their orbits — including footage of Earth eclipsing the sun, that shows the spacecraft submerged in brief darkness as our planet blocks nearly all of the sun’s light.

But the lander is just getting started — Firefly’s CEO, Jason Kim, previously told CNN that he is excited about sharing images and footage that Blue Ghost captures after landing. The lander is expected to capture a solar eclipse on March 14, where our planet will block the sun from the moon’s surface and cast Blue Ghost into Earth’s shadow for about five hours. From Earth, a lunar eclipse will be visible to those in the path of totality.

The lander is also expected to capture a phenomenon during the lunar sunset on March 16, that was first sketched by Apollo 17 astronaut Gene Cernan.

“There’s a phenomenon called the lunar horizon glow (scattered light caused by floating electrostatic particles) that only the Apollo 15 and 17 astronauts have seen with their eyes,” Kim said. “We’re going to be able to capture that in 4K-by-4K high-definition video and share that with the rest of the world.”

NASA is looking to test out a “paradigm shift” in how soil samples are collected on the moon.

Called the Lunar PlanetVac, it is essentially a vacuum cleaner designed to function with little gravity.

The device even comes packed with its own gas, and when it turns on, a blast of pressurized gas will create “a small tornado,” according to NASA.

“If successful, material from the dust cloud it creates then will be funneled into a transfer tube via the payload’s secondary pneumatic jets and collected in a sample container,” the space agency said in a blog post.

The process will take mere seconds, and once inside the sample container, the soil will be sifted and photographed, transmitting the data back home. (The sample will not be returned to Earth, nor will the Blue Ghost lunar lander. They’re set to remain on the moon indefinitely.)

The instrument was developed by Honeybee Robotics, which is a subsidiary of Blue Origin, the space company founded by Jeff Bezos.

“There’s no digging, no mechanical arm to wear out requiring servicing or replacement – it functions like a vacuum cleaner.”

Dennis Harris, manager for the LPV payload at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center

GPS service is prolific on Earth, underpinning everything from our driving directions to our dating apps.

The service is used in space, too. Weather satellites, for example, rely on the tech.

But a payload on board Blue Ghost has more than doubled the previous record for how far into space a GPS signal has been acquired.

It’s called the Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment (LuGRE) payload, which is part of a collaboration between NASA and the Italian Space Agency. And it’s seeking to push the boundaries of GPS and the European GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System).

LuGRE will also attempt to get GPS signals from the lunar surface, something that was thought unlikely if not impossible until recently, said James Miller, deputy director with NASA’s Space Communications and Navigation Program.

“With the advancement of technology, these ultra-weak signal tracking receivers and high-gain antenna combinations actually have pushed the envelope so that we are confident,” Miller said.

Miller said GPS is not the end-all solution to navigating on the moon. But it will take years — perhaps decades — to set up extensive infrastructure, and GPS services can provide a nice stop gap.

GPS is “already broadcasting,” Miller said. “So we’re trying to be as cost-effective as we can for the US government.”

Firefly just released an official statement on its mission’s success, saying the “Blue Ghost lunar lander softly touched down on the Moon’s surface in an upright, stable configuration on the company’s first attempt.”

“As part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, Firefly’s Blue Ghost Mission 1, named Ghost Riders in the Sky, sets the tone for the future of exploration across cislunar space as the first commercial company in history to achieve a fully successful Moon landing,” the statement reads.

NASA and Firefly personnel are expected to take questions from reporters at a news conference scheduled for 4:30 a.m. CT (5:30 a.m. ET).

Nicky Fox, head of NASA’s science mission directorate, just took the stage alongside Firefly CEO Jason Kim and several other key leaders behind this misison.

Fox commented on how Firefly employees appeared relaxed and in control throughout the landing: “There was no panic. It was amazing — just everyone was calm, everyone was disciplined. Everybody knew exactly what they were doing. No one had any doubt that we were going to land on the moon tonight.”

Blue Ghost just sent its first visual dispatch — a photo of the lunar soil beneath its feet.

“The navigation system did such a phenomenal job finding what looks like a relatively flat surface for us to land on,” Firefly’s Brigette Oaks said.

NASA was expected to pay Firefly $93 million for this mission.

But that value was ultimately bumped up to $101 million. The price increase accounted for challenges with Covid-ravaged supply chains and other small changes to the mission profile.

Another key reason: According to CEO Jason Kim, Blue Ghost required some tweaks in the hopes that the vehicle will briefly survive lunar nightfall — when temperatures can drop to -250°F (-130°C).

Blue Ghost will spend the vast majority of its mission in lunar daylight, basking in the warm glow of the sun’s rays and drawing energy into its solar panels.

But after about 14 days, night will encroach. Typically the disappearing sunlight spells the end for lunar lander missions, but Blue Ghost will aim to stay alive.

“There’s five hours at the end of the 14 days where we’ll be performing operations into the lunar night and really test the limits of the system,” Firefly CEO Jason Kim told CNN in December.

The hundreds of Firefly employees gathered at a watch party in Cedar Park, Texas gritted through the final nail-biting moments before touchdown was confirmed.

Now — they’re letting loose.

Now that Blue Ghost is on the moon, the real work begins.

“This is going to be the beginning of our surface operations,” Firefly’s Brigette Oaks said. “Within the next two hours, Blue Ghost will…activate each subsystem and perform health checks.”

Shortly, the vehicle will begin dispatching high-definition photos and vidoes.

“And then following surface commissioning, we’re going to begin those 14 days of the payload operations,” Oaks said.

There are 10 NASA science instruments and tech demonstrations on board.

Mission control is “fired up,” Firefly CEO Jason Kim said.

“Every single thing was clockwork, even when we landed,” he added. “We got some moon dust on our boots.”

Crucially, he added, “We saw everything was stable and upright.”

NASA’s Nicky Fox and Joel Kearns, leaders within NASA’s science mission directorate, just took the stage.

Kearns offered a lighthearted reminder: “They made it look easy. It’s not easy,” he declared.

Fox added, “It’s just an amazing, amazing achievement. I’m so proud of everyone in this room, because you all had a part in putting this lander on the moon.”

On the Blue Ghost webcast, the hosts declared that Firefly “just became the first commercial company in history to complete a fully successful” touchdown on the moon.

That is a reference to Houston-based Intuitive Machines’ IM-1 mission. Though that mission was deemed a success, the spacecraft did tip over on landing. The sideways orientation prevented the lander from operating as long as Intuitive Machines had originally expected.

Still, Intuitive Machines has claimed the title of first commercial company ever to soft-land a spacecraft on the moon.

Firefly is now looking to distinguish itself with the “fully successful” clarifier.

One small detail stuck out from the livestream: Icons on the live stream representing the four feet at the base of Blue Ghost’s landing legs turned blue — the color the icons were meant to turn when they confirmed they’d touched down on the surface.

It’s not yet clear whether that’s an indication that one of the legs may not be firmly on the ground.

Blue Ghost has landed. The employees at Firefly’s watch party in Cedar Park, Texas are enjoying a raucous celebration.

Firefly was able to quickly confirm that the vehicle reached the surface because the vehicle’s four landing legs are equipped with sensors, designed to immediately confirm touchdown.

It’s the final moments. Cruically, mission control just confirmed that Blue Ghost is using its autonomous guidance and its navigation sensors, or rangefinders, are working.

Blue Ghost has already survived quite a bit. It endured the raucous vibrations as it rode inside the nose cone of a Falcon 9 rocket on the way to orbit.

The lander then separated from the rocket and fired its own engines. All told, the vehicle has spent more than a month — 45 days — in transit to the moon.

So why, exactly, does this vehicle have to touch down at a decidedly inconvenient time of 2:34 a.m. for the engineers at Firefly’s mission control near Austin, Texas?

The reason is simple: While it might be the middle of the night here in the Lone Star State, lunar daytime is just rising at Blue Ghost’s landing site.

“That’s when the sun rises at our landing site in Mare Crisium, and we want to take full advantage of the entire lunar day (14 Earth days) when we have sunlight to operate our 10 payloads,” said Risa Schnautz, Firefly’s director of marketing and communications in an email to CNN.

Blue Ghost is now conducting a 9-minute long “power descent initiation” — when it ignites its engine in an effort to rapidly shed speed.

The vehicle must go from traveling nearly 4,000 miles per hour to just a couple miles per hour before touchdown.

This lander just ticked through another key milestone: A go no-go poll.

That’s when a round robin of mission controllers vocally verify that Blue Ghost’s systems are looking good for a landing attempt.

Raucous cheers erupted as each of the controllers declared “GO.”

NASA’s acting chief Janet Petro, who is leading the agency as Trump’s pick awaits confirmation, is at Firefly’s watch party in Cedar Park, Texas.

“This administration really wants to keep America first,” Petro said of President Donald Trump.

“As long as we keep dominating that space, I think we’re going to be putting America first,” Petro said. “I would also in particular like to thank the Firefly team. Earlier today, I was talking to (FIrefly CEO Jason Kim). He was talking about his team of people… I can tell you: they are motivated, they are dedicated, they are relentless, they persevere.”

Petro also mentioned her favorite science payload on board Blue Ghost: The electro dynamic dust shield. That instrument is designed to keep troublesome soil off of crucial components using “a pattern of electrodes to generate a non-uniform electric field,” according to NASA.

“I know that team is so excited to see that technology go to work on the Blue Ghost,” Petro said. “And I think everyone remembers from Apollo the difficulty of all the dust and how it would cover the cameras…on the vehicle itself and the solar panels.”

The space industry has been abuzz about how NASA — and its moon-focused Artemis program — may change under Trump. He and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk (now a top Trump advisor) have expressed interest in focusing on Mars

All lunar landing attempts — even missions such as this with no humans on board — bring with them an element of risk and awe.

Success is not guaranteed. Overall, more than half of all lunar landing attempts have ended in failure — tough odds for a feat humanity first pulled off nearly 60 years ago.

While technology has advanced in the past five decades, the fundamental challenges of landing on the moon remain the same. Here’s what Blue Ghost has had to overcome — and what it has yet to face.

Firefly’s lander is now making a careful descent.

Current live data shows the vehicle is about 40 miles (66 kilometers) above the lunar surface, travelling about 5,900 kilometers per hour.

Before touchdown, Blue Ghost will need to decrease its speed to about 2.2 miles per hour (1 meter per second).

A crucial engine burn that put the Blue Ghost lander on track to head to its touchdown location appears to have gone smoothly.

Live telemetry is available once again.

Blue Ghost carries 10 NASA science and technology instruments aboard as part of the space agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services, or CLPS, initiative. CLPS is part of NASA’s broader Artemis program, which aims to land astronauts on the moon for the first time in more than 50 years.

After Blue Ghost lands on the moon, the instruments will operate for more than two weeks to collect “critical science data… that will pave the way for a lasting lunar presence and unlock exploration further into our solar system,” Will Coogan, Firefly’s Blue Ghost chief engineer, previously told CNN in an email.

Some of the data to be collected will include information on the moon’s subsurface, such as lunar dust and regolith (the loose rocks and mineral fragments that cover the lunar surface), as well as developing navigation technology for future lunar missions.

“Robotic deliveries like the Blue Ghost mission perform science experiments, test technologies, and demonstrate capabilities on and around the Moon to prepare for astronaut missions to the lunar surface, and ultimately crewed missions to Mars,” NASA’s Artemis program said in a recent Instagram post.

This spacecraft’s designated landing site is near Mons Latreille, a small mountain that lies on the moon’s visible side on the far eastern edge, just north of the equator.

The area was chosen because “it avoids large magnetic anomalies — (or interruptions) — on the lunar surface that could disrupt some of our payload measurements,” said Ryan Watkins, the program scientist for NASA’s exploration science strategy and integration office, during a December briefing.

Mons Latreille is located within Mare Crisium, a sprawling lunar basin that stretches 340 miles (550 kilometers) wide. Scientists believe Mare Crisium was formed when the moon was struck by an asteroid. Over time, the basin flooded with basaltic lava, a dark lava commonly found on Earth.

Mare Crisium’s name means “Sea of Crises” in Latin.

Mons Latreille is named for Pierre André Latreille, a French entomologist.

Ray Allensworth, Firefly’s program director for Blue Ghost, just made a livestream appearance. And she reports that the engineers on console in mission control are surprisingly relaxed.

“I think the excitement is rising. I’ll say the (mission control) center right now is actually, like, really calm. So that’s nice,” Allensworth said. “The teams practiced this many times so I think they’re just ready for it to happen.”

Adding an element of ease is the fact that Firefly’s Blue Ghost lander has experienced few issues on its journey so far.

Blue Ghost has “really behaved really well,” Allensworth added. “We haven’t had any major anomalies, which is fantastic.”

Blue Ghost is preparing for a crucial engine burn. But for now communication with the vehicle is lost.

“Blue Ghost just entered a planned comms blackout on the far side of the moon, where we have limited access to around stations on Earth,” Firefly’s Brigette Oaks said.

Next up is a crucial 19-second engine burn — scheduled for 1:31 a.m. CT (2:31 a.m. ET) — that will occur on the moon’s far side, followed by a 50-minute coast phase.

“Comms should be back online about halfway through that coast phase,” Oaks said.

The webcast of tonight’s landing attempt just kicked off.

Live data shows the lander is traveling at 5,897 kilometers per hour (3,664 miles per hour) and is currently coasting 106 kilometers (66 miles) above the lunar surface.

Co-hosting the livestream are Nilufar Ramji, a NASA spokesperson, and Brigette Oakes, Firefly’s vice president of engineering.

Firefly just hit a crucial milestone: Mission control gave the thumbs up for the lander to conduct an engine burn called a “descent orbit insertion.”

This maneuver will put the lander on track for its touchdown, driving it on a trajectory toward the surface.

Employees at a viewing site here in Cedar Park, Texas, gave out loud cheers as the call was made. Audio from mission control is being broadcast for the event.

Firefly started as a company focused on rockets — the piece of aerospace equipment designed to haul satellites and spacecraft (such as lunar landers) to orbit.

And the company has had a few hangups, with its Alpha rocket notching a couple partial failures and two successes since its first failed flight in 2021.

Jason Kim, Firefly’s CEO, told CNN that learning how to build a rocket that can make it to orbit can offer some crucial know-how that informs how the company designed the propulsion system on board Blue Ghost.

“We’re using the same (attitude control) thrusters that have flight heritage on that rocket. We’re also using (reaction control) thrusters that we’ve built, developed in house, that are designed by the same people that design our rocket engines,” Kim said.

“That reduces risk and leverages a lot of the commonality and design and subject matter expertise,” he added.

Firefly test fires its rocket engines on a sprawling ranch in the tiny community of Briggs, Texas (which lies just up the road from this reporter’s hometown of Liberty Hill). CNN has visited the site several times over the years — watching as it evolved from a rocket engine test stand into a functioning factory rolling out full-size rockets.

As of CNN’s last visit in 2022, the engine test stands still sat right next to a cow pasture. We witnessed an engine test in 2019. The cows seemed remarkably unbothered.

The thrusters Kim mentioned were built (but not tested) at the Briggs site. The large main engine at Blue Ghost’s center, however, was built by a supplier.

CLPS, pronounced “clips,” stands for Commercial Lunar Payload Services — a NASA initiative under which Blue Ghost is one of several robotic landers vying to carry out key scientific research on the moon.

It’s all part of the space agency’s Artemis Program, which aims to return astronauts to the lunar surface for the first time in more than 50 years by mid-2027, according to the latest NASA timeline.

For CLPS, the goal is to gather troves of data and test out crucial technology using robotic vehicles to pave the way for missions that have humans on board. NASA will need all the information it can get, as the stated goal of the Artemis Program is to get humans on the moon not just to visit, but eventually to stay for extended periods, establishing a permanent lunar base.

The program could help inform how NASA might carry out even more dangerous deep-space missions to Mars.

It’s not clear what changes may be in store for the program as President Donald Trump and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk (now a top Trump advisor) have expressed interest in focusing on Mars

Firefly is one of 14 participants in the CLPS program, but one of only of five selected companies that have task orders or firm plans to travel to the moon with NASA payloads.

For this mission, the space agency is paying Firefly $101 million for its services. And the total value of the NASA experiments on board the Blue Ghost lander is $44 million, according to Joel Kearns, a deputy associate administrator for NASA.

Call it a surefire sign that a modern moon race is underway: Firefly’s Blue Ghost is far from alone in the cosmic void.

There are currently two other lunar landers in transit toward their future moon-bound homes, Resilience and Athena.

Resilience is a commercial spacecraft developed by Japan-based Ispace. The company is aiming to redeem itself after a failed landing attempt in 2023, underpinned by its motto “Never Quit the Lunar Quest.” Resilience also launched on the same rocket as Blue Ghost, though it is taking a much slower trajectory to the moon and is not expected to land before spring.

Ispace is targeting landing in a 750-mile-long (1,200-kilometer-long) plain called Mare Frigoris — or the “Sea of Cold” — which lies in the moon’s far northern reaches.

Athena, meanwhile, is the spacecraft built by Houston-based company Intuitive Machines, which so far is the only private-sector company in the world to complete a soft touchdown on the moon. Its Odysseus lander notched that historic accomplishment last year.

Athena is jam-packed with science instruments and will aim to land closer to the moon’s south pole than any human or robot has traveled before. The south pole is considered crucial to the modern moon race, as scientists believe it’s home to stores of water ice, which could be converted to drinking water, breathable air, and even rocket fuel.

A few high-profile NASA figures have made the trip to Austin to watch tonight’s landing attempt alongside Firefly personnel.

They include Vanessa Wyche, the acting associate administrator of NASA.

Also in attendance are Nicky Fox, NASA’s associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate, and Joel Kerns, a deputy associate administrator and key figure in the CLPS program, which is the NASA effort backing tonight’s landing attempt.

The private US spacecraft left Earth’s orbit on February 8 before making a dayslong journey to reach the moon. After a successful insertion into the lunar orbit on February 13, the lander spent about 16 days circling the moon and capturing dazzling imagery of its features.

Among the imagery shared, Blue Ghost had captured close-up footage of the moon’s far side, an area that is not visible from Earth, taken from about 100 kilometers (62.1 miles) above the surface, as well as stunning imagery of an area of the lunar south pole.

“Of course, we had an idea of how the imagery would look, but seeing the real-life footage of the Moon’s craters and boulders from our very own spacecraft is such an inspiration, and really hits home how close we are to our final destination after all the hard work we’ve put into this mission,” Joseph Marlin, deputy chief engineer for Blue Ghost, previously told CNN in an email.

The engineers behind Blue Ghost are particularly excited for the data that is expected to be collected after landing, and the imagery they hope to acquire then, Marlin said.

Dr. Joel Kearns — the deputy associate administrator for exploration in NASA’s Science Mission Directorate and one of the primary faces of NASA’s CLPS initiative under which Blue Ghost is flying — just addressed the crowd.

“Science never sleeps, as you can tell because you’re here,” Kearns quipped.

With the work that’s being done by Firefly on Blue Ghost, the United States is going to help us get ready very soon to send astronauts to places on the moon where astronauts have not been before.

Joel Kearns, a NASA deputy associate administrator

Dr. Sian Proctor, a geologist, is opening tonight’s Firefly employee watch party with a poem.

Proctor gained worldwide visibility in 2021 when she ventured into space as part of the Inspiration4 mission — a commercial SpaceX flight spearheaded by billionaire tech titan and Trump’s NASA administrator pick Jared Isaacman.

“What few people know is the way I got selected (for the Inspiration4 mission) was through poetry,” Proctor said. “I wrote a poem that won me a seat to space, a three-day trip to space”.

The Blue Ghost lunar lander has documented its journey in space since it first entered Earth’s orbit on January 15, when the lander hitched a ride on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

The lander, equipped with 12 flight cameras, sent back stunning imagery of the Earth and moon, including its own version of the famous “Blue Marble” photo of Earth.

“Firefly’s first Moon and Blue Marble images captured by our Blue Ghost lunar lander embodies everything this bold, unstoppable team has worked so hard for over the last three years. And we’re just getting started,” Will Coogan, Firefly’s Blue Ghost chief engineer, previously told CNN in an email.

Firefly is based in Cedar Park, Texas, a bustling suburb of Austin.

Known for its long-held love of live music, which can be heard everywhere from the airport to a grocery store, and its “Keep Austin Weird” slogan — the Texas capital city has a distinct DNA that Firefly is embracing.

The company’s watch party, filled with Firefly employees, investors and some NASA VIPs, is being hosted at a venue called Haute Spot. Typically, Haute Spot hosts concerts and other sizable parties.

A Led Zepplin cover band is among the acts ahead.

Firefly is expected to debut a few speakers to keep the crowd entertained as we head into tonight’s lunar landing attempt. But in true Austin flavor, the evening opened with a musical act.

It was fronted by none other than Tim Dodd, the YouTuber and science communicator better known as The Everday Astronaut.

He played with a Blue Ghost lunar lander mockup as his backdrop. And footage of SpaceX launches played on a large screen off to the side of the stage.

Blue Ghost is expected to touch down at 2:34 a.m. CT (3:34 a.m. ET) on March 2. Firefly will host a joint livestream with NASA starting at 1:20 a.m. CT (2:20 a.m. ET) or about 75 minutes before the landing attempt.

You can watch the coverage here.

CNN will also be providing live updates from a company event with employees and customers down the street from Firefly’s headquarters near Austin, Texas, that you can read here.

Blue Ghost is one of several robotic lunar landers that NASA has picked to fly to the moon — hoping uncrewed missions will pave the way for astronauts to return later this decade.

Standing at 6.6 feet (2 meters) tall and 11.5 feet (3.5 meters) wide, Blue Ghost is a box-shaped lander packed with 10 different science instruments and technology demonstrations.

And it’s not your grandparents’ lander.

“Certainly, our landing systems uses some sophisticated vision navigation,” Firefly’s vice president of spacecraft, Jana Spruce, told CNN in 2023. “That part is very new, as opposed to the Apollo days.”

Here’s a quick look at some key parts:

After 45 days in transit, Blue Ghost is finally ready for the big show: attempting to make a soft touchdown on the moon.

It’ll be far from easy, as the vehicle must stay in control as it attempts to slow down from thousands of miles per hour to make a precision touchdown — while avoiding troublesome craters and rocks.

Here are the key moments to watch for:

• 63 minutes before touchdown: Blue Ghost conducts its “descent orbit insertion.” That an engine burn that will place the vehicle on a trajectory down toward the moon’s surface.

• 62 minutes before touchdown: Blue Ghost will begin a “coast phase” as its navigation systems keep a close eye on its orientation and position relative to the moon.

• 11 minutes before touchdown: Blue Ghost will ignite all of its thrusters and main engine to slow itself down — aiming to decrease its speed from 1.7 kilometers per second (3,800 miles per hour) to just 40 meters per second (90 miles per hour).

• 100 seconds before touchdown: Blue Ghost will hit a speed of just 1 meter per second (2.2 miles per hour) as precision thrusters steer its final descent.

• TOUCHDOWN: This is set to occur at 2:34 a.m CT (3:34 a.m. ET). Firefly is expected to give confirmation of a safe landing within minutes — if the spacecraft has a smooth arrival.

• 30 minutes after touchdown: Firefly expects to begin sharing Blue Ghost’s first images from the lunar surface.
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Source: https://www.cnn.com/science/live-news/moon-landing-blue-ghost-03-02-25/index.html