My Handcrafted Blue Ghost Spaceship Ready to Touch Down on the Moon

The personally built spacecraft is a few hours away from landing on the moon, a feat only achieved by one other company in spaceflight history.

The robot lander, known as Blue Ghost, has been orbiting the moon for approximately two weeks, gearing up for a daring descent. Firefly Aerospace, a Texas-based company, has developed a spacecraft with the goal of landing on the moon around 3:34 am early Sunday.

If all goes as planned, Blue Ghost will become the second privately owned vehicle to land on the moon. In February 2024, another Texas-based company, Intuitive Machines, made history with the Odysseus Lander successfully touching down near the moon’s Antarctic region.

Firefly Aerospace’s future landing attempts are set for 2025 as part of a robotic mission to the moon. Recently, Intuitive Machines launched its second lunar landing vehicle into space. Japanese company, The Ispace, was also sent towards the moon on the same rocket as Blue Ghost, taking a longer route but expected to arrive around late May or early June.

Blue Ghost is targeting a landing site in a 350-mile-wide basin near the moon’s surface, always facing the Earth. This area is believed to be the location of an ancient asteroid impact, according to NASA.

During a recent orbit around the moon, the Lander captured footage showing distant craters on the lunar surface.

Blue Ghost is scheduled to begin its descent around 2 am on Sunday. NASA will broadcast live streams starting at 2:20 am ET on NASA TV.

Equipped with 10 NASA science instruments, the spacecraft will conduct various studies, including surveying the moon’s interior up to 700 miles deep, capturing Earth-focused x-ray images, analyzing space weather interactions with Earth’s magnetic field, and capturing detailed images during the descent for future missions.

The instruments onboard the Lander will examine lunar soil samples, study lunar dust adherence to different surfaces, and use lasers to measure Earth-Moon distance accurately.

Blue Ghost is expected to gather data on the moon for about two weeks.

This mission is part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative, a public-private partnership between NASA and US companies to deliver scientific experiments, technology, and cargo to the moon. It is a critical component of NASA’s Artemis program, designed to eventually return humans to the moon.

NASA allocated approximately $101.5 million to Firefly Aerospace to carry out the Blue Ghost Mission.

NASA states that the scientific experiments and technology demonstrations on these missions will enhance our understanding of the moon’s Antarctic region, where future human crews are expected to land.