Two moon landings per week for NASA’s private moonfleet

More than 50 years have passed between the final Apollo mission and the US return to the lunar surface.

Well, starting Sunday, two more missions are set to continue within a week, marking bold pushes by NASA and its industry partners, making the lunar landing a routine part of space exploration.

The Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1, known as “Ghost Riders in the Sky,” landed at 3:34am (0834 GMT) in the eastern US, near Mons Latreille, a volcanic feature of chrysium mares in the northeastern part of the moon.

During the journey, it captured stunning footage of the moon, approaching 60 miles (100 km) from the surface before a successful landing.

The Birch-sized Golden Lander features 10 instruments, including one for analyzing the lunar soil, another for testing radiation-resistant computing, and a GPS-based navigation system.

Currently, on the surface of the moon, the blue ghost is set to operate on full moon day (14th Earth Day), and is expected to capture a high-resolution image of the total solar eclipse on March 14th, when the Earth blocked the sun from the moon horizon on March 14th.

On March 16th, it records the moon’s sunset and provides insight into how dust floats on the surface under the influence of the sun.

Hopping drone

The Blue Ghost arrives on March 6th, with the intuitive machine IM-2 mission, with its lander, Athena.

Last year, the intuitive machine made history as the first private company to achieve a soft landing on the moon, but that moment was tempered by an accident.

If it’s too fast, one of the lander’s feet will get caught up in the surface of the moon, flipping it over and resting on the side. Limits the ability to generate solar power and cuts missions shorter.

Now, the company says it has brought significant improvements to the hexagonal lander, which is taller than the Blue Ghost, with a slimmer profile and is at the height of an adult giraffe.

Athena was launched on Wednesday on a SpaceX Rocket and took a more direct route towards Mons Mouton.

It carries an ambitious series of payloads, including a unique hopping drone designed to explore underground passages of the moon carved into ancient lava flows, drills that allow you to dig three feet below the surface in search of ice, and a three-man rover.

The largest beagle size connects to the Lander and Hopper using the Nokia Cellular Network in the first unparalleled demo.

However, the hopping drone “Grace,” named after the calculation of the Pioneer Grace Hopper, was able to steal the show well if it was successful in showing that it could navigate the dangerous terrain of the moon in a way that a rover could not.

NASA’s Private Moonfleet

Landing on the moon poses a unique challenge due to the lack of atmosphere and makes parachutes effective. Instead, spacecraft must resort to precisely controlled thrusthan burns to slow down descent while navigating dangerous terrain.

Only five national space agencies achieved this feat until the first successful mission of intuitive machinery. The Soviet Union, the US, China, India, Japan, that order.

Currently, the US is working to make private month missions a routine through NASA’s $2.6 billion Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, a public-private initiative designed to deliver hardware to the surface at just a small portion of traditional mission costs.

These missions come at a crucial moment for NASA. In support of prioritizing Mars exploration prioritization, it is a key goal for both President Donald Trump and his close adviser, SpaceX founder Elon Musk, amid speculation that Artemis’s lunar program could be reduced or cancelled.

©2025 AFP