SpaceX Just Launched Two Private Moon Landers. Here’s What Happens Next

Update: Wednesday, January 15, 9:10 a.m. ET: SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, carrying Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander and ispace’s Resilience lander, successfully blasted off earlier this morning at 1:11 a.m. ET from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Firefly says it managed to acquire signal and complete on-orbit commissioning, so the mission appears to be off to a good start.

Original article follows. 

The Moon is about to get busy. A pair of landers are riding on board a SpaceX rocket this week, aiming to touchdown on the lunar surface and unpack a host of science instruments. The two missions are part of a commercial push to explore the Moon, marking the start of a new era for private spaceflight.

Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander and ispace’s Resilience lander are set for launch on Wednesday, January 15 at 1:11 a.m. ET. The missions will liftoff from Launch Complex-39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida, riding  aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. NASA will livestream the launch on its website and NASA+, with the broadcast beginning at 12:30 a.m. ET on Wednesday. You can also tune in to the live feed below.

Journey to the Moon

Although both landers will launch together, they will each follow a different trajectory toward the Moon. Firefly’s mission, named “Ghost Riders in the Sky,” will take 45 days to reach the Moon. For the first 25 days following launch, the Blue Ghost lander will orbit Earth before performing an engine burn to place it on a trajectory toward the Moon. Blue Ghost will spend four days en route to the Moon, and another 16 orbiting Earth’s satellite before attempting a soft touchdown on its dusty surface.

The Resilience lander, on the other hand, will follow a much slower route to the Moon. After operating in an elliptical transfer orbit, the lander will conduct a lunar flyby, shifting into a low-energy trajectory for a planned soft landing on the Moon.

The Japanese startup’s first mission to the Moon, launched in April 2023, took about four and a half months to reach lunar orbit, but the lander ultimately failed to stick its landing on the surface; the Hakuto-R Mission 1 (M1) Lunar Lander, as it was named, plummeted towards the Moon and crashed on its surface. Hakuto-R M1 had been carrying both commercial and government-owned payloads, including a tiny, two-wheeled transformable robot from the Japanese space agency.

Clear for landing

Following their journey to the Moon, both landers will be targeting lunar mares—flat, dark plains formed by ancient impacts that were later flooded with lava and other material.

More specifically, Blue Ghost is targeting Mare Crisium, the site of an ancient asteroid impact site once filled with basaltic lava. The basalts in Mare Crisium are between 2.5 and 3.3 billion years old, according to NASA.

As for ispace’s Resilience, the lander is set to explore Mare Frigoris, located in the Moon’s far northern regions. The location name translates to “sea of cold,” as it stretches along the northern part of the Moon’s disc for nearly 900 miles (1,400 kilometers).

What’s inside the Blue Ghost lander?

Texas-based Firefly’s first mission to the Moon is a collaboration with NASA as part of the space agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, which aims to develop commercial delivery services to the Moon. NASA works with its partners in the industry to build landers that can pack its science and technology payloads and deliver them to the lunar surface.

Blue Ghost is carrying 10 scientific instruments to study the lunar surface and gather data to support future human missions to the Moon, according to NASA. The instruments include: LEXI (or Lunar Environment heliospheric X-ray Imager), which will capture a series of X-ray images to study the interaction of solar wind and Earth’s magnetic field; the Lunar Magnetotelluric Sounder, designed to measure electric and magnetic fields to characterize the structure and composition of the Moon’s mantle; and the Stereo Camera for Lunar Plume-Surface Studies, which will capture how the lander’s plume disturbs lunar regolith as Blue Ghost touches down on the Moon’s surface.

The mission is set to operate for a full lunar day—the equivalent of 14 days on Earth. During this time, Blue Ghost will also capture images of a lunar sunset, and collect data on how regolith on the Moon reacts to solar influences during lunar dusk.

What did ispace pack into its Moon mission?

Tokyo-based ispace is transporting privately owned customer payloads to the Moon aboard its lander, including a food production experiment, a deep space radiation probe, and a commemorative alloy plate.

The Resilience lander is also carrying a small rover, named Tenacious, to explore the landing site, collect lunar regolith, and relay data back to the lander, according to ispace. Tenacious is equipped with a high-definition camera and a shovel. A model house by Swedish artist Mikael Genberg will be mounted on the rover, which we’re assuming is for decorative purposes.

This launch is just the tip of the iceberg, with more landers scheduled to follow in the coming months and years. Intuitive Machines, which became the first private company to land on the Moon in February 2024, is gearing up to launch its second lunar lander toward the Moon. Its second mission is scheduled for launch sometime in February and will target the Moon’s south polar region.

Astrobotic, which failed in its first attempt to land on the Moon in January 2024, is hoping for better luck this year. The Pittsburgh-based company is planning to launch its Griffin Mission One lunar lander sometime in 2025 under NASA’s CLPS initiative.

As the private space industry continues to grow, lunar drop-offs will likely become a regular occurrence as companies work to develop their delivery services to the Moon. What we’re about to witness this week is only just the beginning.

Additional reporting by George Dvorsky.