A brilliant start to the year for the commercial space sector. On March 2, 2025, Blue Ghost Mission 1 successfully landed on the Moon, at Mare Crisium.

Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lunar lander successfully touched down in Mare Crisium, marking the first time the company has successfully landed a spacecraft on the Moon without any major incidents.

Following the somewhat dramatic tipped-over landings of both SLIM¹ and Odysseus² last year, seeing a lander touch down firmly on all its pads and remain upright was a welcome relief. Blue Ghost is carrying ten NASA-sponsored payloads under the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) programme, demonstrating that the commercial model for lunar science delivery is maturing rapidly and becoming increasingly reliable.

1. One of it's two engine nozzles fell off and SLIM landed upside down with most of its solar cells pointing away from the Sun Japan's SLIM (Smart Lander for Investigating Moon)
2. Initially thought to be in a vertical orientation, it was later determined to have landed at a 30 degree angle. The lander is thought have lost one or more of its 6 landing struts.IM-1 (Odysseus ) Lunar Landing