Firefly Aerospace, a company based in Cedar Park, will become the first private company to land on the moon. In mid-January 2025, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch Firefly's lunar lander, 'BlueGhost', on the $101 million mission 'Ghost Riders in the Sky'. The journey to the moon will take 45 days. NASA states that 'BlueGhost' will carry 10 payloads that will commence research in Earth's orbit.
Upon landing, Ryan Watkins of NASA said 'BlueGhost' will spend one lunar day (14 Earth days) researching various aspects of the moon. He stated that each payload will have its own research project. 'We're going to be measuring heat flow from the moon in order to better understand the moon's interior structure,' Watkins said. 'We've got payloads that will be looking at the structure of the moon's mantle that's measuring electric and magnetic fields.' This will be Firefly's inaugural BlueGhost mission. CEO Jason Kim stated the mission will be historic. It will mark the first time in 52 years a United States entity has reached the moon. He also said that if all goes according to plan, this will be the first successful lunar landing by a private company. 'It just shows that the private industry in the commercial world has a lot of affordable, responsive technology and systems that could provide NASA a frequent means to go to the moon,' he said. The lunar lander will touchdown near a volcanic feature in a three billion-year-old basin on the moon's near side. Firefly stated this unique landing site will allow the payloads to gather critical data about the Moon’s regolith, geophysical characteristics, and the interaction of solar wind and Earth’s magnetic field. This is seen as the beginning of private companies further advancing space research. 'We believe in a future of a very robust lunar economy that is the gateway to other planets like Mars,' he said. Firefly Aerospace is already planning 'BlueGhost Mission Two' for 2026