Stunning Images Capture Blue Ghost Mission 1's Successful Moon Landing

A US corporation has successfully landed a spacecraft on the Moon, making it only the second private mission to do so - and the first upright.

Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost Mission 1 landed at 8.34 am GMT near Mons Latreille, a volcanic feature in Mare Crisium on the Moon's north-east side.

The mission control team in Austin, Texas, burst into cheers when the firm's CEO, Jason Kim, certified that the spacecraft was "stable and upright."

That starkly contrasted to the first private lunar landing in February 2024 by Texas-based Intuitive Machines, which tumbled over upon arrival, undermining the achievement of becoming the first US moon landing since the crewed Apollo 17 mission in 1972.

Ray Allensworth, Blue Ghost's program manager, emphasized the precision of the landing, stating that it landed within 100 meters of its target.

"We did do two hazard avoidance maneuvers on the way down - that tells us that our software did work exactly as it needed to," she said to journalists.

The first photograph from the lander showed rugged, pockmarked terrain that Blue Ghost had to navigate autonomously during its final descent, slowing from thousands of miles per hour to just two mph.

The mission is part of a $2.6 billion N asa cooperation aimed at cutting costs and supporting Artemis; the program meant to return men to the Moon.

The golden lander, about the size of a hippopotamus, was launched on 15 January aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and captured magnificent pictures of Earth and the Moon throughout its 2.8 million-mile voyage.

It includes ten pieces of equipment, including a lunar soil analyzer, a radiation-tolerant computer, and an experiment to determine the viability of using the existing global satellite navigation system to travel to the Moon.

It is expected to capture high-definition imagery of a total eclipse on March 14, when Earth blocks the sun from the moon's horizon, as well as a lunar sunset on March 16, providing insights into how dust levitates under solar influence, resulting in the mysterious lunar horizon glow first documented by Apollo astronaut Eugene Cernan.

Blue Ghost will be followed on March 6 by Intuitive Machines' IM-2 mission, which will include the lander Athena.

During the company's first flight in February 2024, the lander came down too quickly, catching a foot on the surface and tipping over, ending operations short.

Landing on the moon is particularly difficult due to the lack of atmosphere, rendering parachutes worthless. Spacecraft must use carefully regulated thruster burns to delay their fall over dangerous terrain.