Overview
- The National Aeronautic Association announced the award on March 18, 2026, with a formal presentation set for June in Washington, D.C.
- Blue Ghost achieved the first fully successful commercial soft landing on March 2, 2025, in Mare Crisium near Mons Latreille and operated for more than 14 days while running multiple NASA payloads.
- The lander returned nearly 120 GB of data, including the first high‑resolution images of a total solar eclipse from the Moon, a lunar sunset video, lunar dust imagery, and results from the LuGRE GPS experiment.
- Blue Ghost was selected over teams from Boom Supersonic, Venus Aerospace, Wing, Anduril, and NASA JPL’s Surface Water and Ocean Topography mission.
- Firefly plans further CLPS missions starting later in 2026 using its Elytra orbiter to deploy ESA’s Lunar Pathfinder and target a far‑side landing, with rover missions slated for 2028 and 2029 to support a commercial lunar imaging and mapping service.