Private lunar lander Blue Ghost falls silent on the moon after a 2-week mission

Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost spacecraft casts a shadow on the Moon’s floor on this handout picture obtained by Reuters on March 2, 2025.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

It’s lights out for the first personal lunar lander to drag off a totally profitable moon mission.

Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander fell silent over the weekend, wrapping up two weeks of science experiments for NASA. The finish got here as the solar set at the moon, not offering power for the lander’s photo voltaic panels.

“Mission is completed,” Firefly CEO Jason Kim mentioned by way of X late Sunday evening. “But the Ghost still lives on in our hearts and minds for the journey it’s taken us on!”

The lander operated 5 hours into the lunar evening as deliberate earlier than it died Sunday night. Photos of the lunar sundown and glow will probably be launched on Tuesday, Kim mentioned.

This handout {photograph} taken by Firefly Aerospace on March 16, 2025 and launched on March 18, exhibits the lunar floor and the setting solar with Earth and Venus on the horizon, throughout the lunar mission of Firefly’s Blue Ghost lunar lander. The personal US lander has captured eerie high-definition photos of a lunar sundown, which NASA hopes to make use of to unravel the thriller of a haze first noticed on the Moon in the Sixties.
| Photo Credit:
AFP

Blue Ghost launched from Cape Canaveral in January as a part of NASA’s business lunar supply program. It landed at the moon’s far northeastern edge on March 2. It carried a drill, vacuum and different science and tech devices for NASA. Firefly confirmed Monday that every one 10 experiments labored.

Late final week, Blue Ghost noticed a complete photo voltaic eclipse from the moon — a complete lunar eclipse as seen from Earth.

The Texas-based Firefly turned the first personal firm to land on the moon with out falling or crashing after a string of failed missions by different corporations over the previous few years. Only 5 international locations — the United States, Russia, China, India and Japan — have achieved a profitable touchdown.

A Japanese firm’s lunar lander shared the SpaceX rocket trip, however took a good longer path to get to the moon. That lander from ispace is focusing on an early June landing.

Another Texas firm, Intuitive Machines, ended up sideways in a crater close to the moon’s south pole earlier this month, dooming the mission. It was the second incomplete mission for Intuitive Machines. Its first lander put the U.S. again on the moon final yr for the first time since the Apollo period after a less-than-perfect touchdown that hampered communications.

Firefly is already working on its subsequent lunar lander and striving for one moon touchdown a yr.