Texas Based Firefly Aerospace Lunar Lander Successfully Reaches Moon

A Texas based company has made it to the Moon.

Firefly Aerospace is a private aerospace company located in Cedar Park, Texas just north of Austin. The company was originally known as Firefly Space Systems, but they went bankrupt in 2017. All of the assets were purchased by EOS Launcher in March 2017, and the company was then renamed to Firefly Aerospace.

Firefly developed the Blue Ghost which is a Lunar Lander that was designed to deliver small payloads to the moon. On January 15th, 2025, Blue Ghost took off at 1:11am for its first lunar mission. The Blue Ghost is only about 6 feet tall and a little over 11 feet wide. It is a squat four-legged lander to provide better stability.

On Sunday, March 2nd, 2025, the Blue Ghost Lunar Lander successfully landed on the moon. It took 45 days for the lunar lander to reach its destination after it took off from the Kennedy Space Center. Blue Ghost carried a payload a little over 200 pounds. It carried reflectors that are used with lasers on the earth to measure the distance between Earth and the Moon. There are also cameras on board that will be used to capture video and images. One of the images expected to be taken is the lunar sunset which has only been seen once, and that was during the Apollo missions.

The next scheduled launch for Firefly Aerospace is in 2026.