A major step toward routine lunar exploration
After more than five decades between the last Apollo mission and America’s return to the Moon with the first private lander last year, NASA and its industry partners are now accelerating their lunar ambitions.
Starting Sunday, two more landings are scheduled within a single week, marking a significant push to establish Moon landings as a regular aspect of space exploration.
First up: Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1
Firefly Aerospace’s “Blue Ghost Mission 1,” nicknamed “Ghost Riders in the Sky,” will be the first to touch down.
Launched in January, the lander is targeting a landing near Mons Latreille, a volcanic region in Mare Crisium on the Moon’s northeastern near side. The touchdown is expected at 3:34 am US Eastern time (0834 GMT).
Along its journey, the golden-hued lander—comparable in size to a hippopotamus—has captured stunning images of the Moon from as close as 60 miles (100 kilometers) above its surface.
Equipped with ten scientific instruments, Blue Ghost is designed to study lunar soil, test radiation-resistant computing, and demonstrate a GPS-based navigation system. It is expected to operate for a full lunar day (14 Earth days), capturing high-definition images of a total eclipse on March 14 and a lunar sunset on March 16, offering insight into the phenomenon of levitating dust that Apollo astronauts first observed.
Following closely: Intuitive Machines’ IM-2 mission
Shortly after Blue Ghost’s arrival, Intuitive Machines will launch its IM-2 mission on March 6, featuring the lander “Athena.”
Intuitive Machines made history last year as the first private company to successfully land on the Moon, though the mission encountered a mishap when the lander tipped over upon landing, reducing its operational time.
This time, the company has made crucial design improvements. The taller, slimmer Athena lander, about the height of an adult giraffe, launched Wednesday aboard a SpaceX rocket. It is headed for Mons Mouton, marking the southernmost lunar landing attempt to date.
Athena carries an ambitious payload, including a hopping drone named “Grace”—a nod to computing pioneer Grace Hopper—designed to explore underground lunar lava tubes. It also carries a drill capable of digging three feet beneath the surface in search of ice, along with three rovers.
One rover, about the size of a beagle, will test a Nokia cellular network for lunar communication—a first-of-its-kind experiment. However, the hopping drone may be the real showstopper, potentially revolutionizing lunar exploration by navigating terrain that traditional rovers cannot.
The push for commercial lunar landings
Landing on the Moon remains a challenging feat due to the lack of an atmosphere, requiring precise thruster burns instead of parachutes for descent.
Until last year’s Intuitive Machines mission, only five national space agencies—the Soviet Union, the United States, China, India, and Japan—had accomplished a soft lunar landing.
Now, through NASA’s $2.6 billion Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, private companies are leading the charge to deliver equipment and experiments to the lunar surface at a fraction of the cost of traditional missions.
These upcoming landings arrive at a pivotal moment, as speculation grows that NASA may shift focus away from its Artemis lunar program in favor of prioritizing Mars exploration—a key goal of President Donald Trump and his close advisor, SpaceX founder Elon Musk.