US spaceship Blue Ghost to attempt historic lunar landing on Moon's ‘unexplored surface’ today

Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 is set to attempt a lunar landing at 3:34 AM ET (12:20 PM IST) on Sunday, targeting an unexplored site near Mons Latreille in Mare Crisium on the Moon’s northeastern near side. If successful, it will become only the second private spacecraft to achieve a soft lunar landing. The golden lander, about the size of a hippopotamus, was launched on January 15 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and has been in lunar orbit since February 13.

The mission is part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, which collaborates with private industry to deliver scientific instruments to the Moon. Blue Ghost carries 10 NASA instruments, including a lunar soil analyzer, a radiation-tolerant computer, and a 700-mile deep subsurface probe. It will also test the feasibility of using global satellite navigation systems on the Moon. The mission, nicknamed "Ghost Riders in the Sky," will last 14 Earth days, conducting experiments and capturing scientific data.

Ahead of the landing attempt, Firefly Aerospace posted on X (formerly Twitter), "Blue Ghost is ready to take the wheel!" The spacecraft has already transmitted high-resolution images of the Moon, including its far side. A crucial Descent Orbit Insertion (DOI) maneuver was executed on February 24, bringing Blue Ghost into its final descent trajectory. The lander also carries cameras to capture X-ray images of Earth’s magnetic field interactions and will document its own descent to aid future missions.

Blue Ghost will record a total lunar eclipse on March 14, when Earth blocks the Sun from the Moon’s horizon, and on March 16, it will capture a lunar sunset, studying how solar radiation causes lunar dust to levitate, a phenomenon first observed by Apollo astronaut Eugene Cernan. Scientists expect the mission to provide key geophysical data from Mare Crisium, an ancient 350-mile-wide impact basin filled with lava, which differs in composition from other lunar regions.

NASA has allocated $2.6 billion to CLPS to make private Moon landings routine and cost-effective. The US, Soviet Union, China, India, and Japan have all landed on the Moon, but only one private mission has succeeded so far. Following Blue Ghost, Intuitive Machines' IM-2 lander, Athena, is set to land on March 6, and a Japanese lander is scheduled to attempt a landing in May. These missions aim to advance lunar science, support future Artemis crewed missions, and pave the way for sustained lunar exploration.