The American company Firefly Aerospace, founded by Ukrainian Maxim Polyakov, announced that it had successfully landed the Blue Ghost module on the Moon and became the first private space company to achieve this.
The American company Firefly Aerospace, founded by Ukrainian Maxim Polyakov, announced that it had successfully landed the Blue Ghost module on the Moon and became the first private space company to achieve this.
«We have confirmation that Blue Ghost has landed! Firefly just became the first commercial company in history to make a completely successful landing on the Moon,» the company said on March 2.
Firefly noted that «this small step on the moon is a giant leap in commercial exploration,» referencing the famous phrase of the first man on the moon, Neil Armstrong.
The company later released a video of its achievement. «After identifying surface hazards and selecting a safe landing site, Blue Ghost landed directly over the target in the Sea of Crises. A historic moment on March 2nd that we will never forget. We have moon dust on our boots!» Firefly Aerospace said.
Watch Firefly land on the Moon! After identifying surface hazards and selecting a safe landing site, #BlueGhost landed directly over the target in Mare Crisium. A historic moment on March 2 we’ll never forget. We have Moon dust on our boots! #BGM1 pic.twitter.com/02DQJzn0hL
— Firefly Aerospace (@Firefly_Space) March 4, 2025
Another private company, Intuitive Machines, hopes to land its Athena spacecraft near the moon’s south pole in the next few days. Intuitive became the first private company to land on the moon, but it failed. Its Odysseus spacecraft reached the moon on February 22 of last year. However, the mission was short-lived, as the spacecraft landed on the side of a crater, broke several landing gear and overturned.
Instead, Blue Ghost made a soft landing after spending the past two weeks in lunar orbit. It launched into space on January 15 aboard a Falcon 9 rocket as part of NASA’s CLPS program, which involves private companies to deliver scientific instruments to the Moon, nauka.ua writes .
Blue Ghost has 10 scientific instruments designed to study the heat flow beneath the Moon’s surface, the structure of the lunar soil, and the effects of the solar wind. Mission engineers are currently working to establish communication with the module to activate the instruments and set up data transmission.
Since the landing took place at sunrise, the instrument will have 14 days of continuous sunlight to conduct research. Scientists also expect to record the solar eclipse by Earth on March 14, and later the sunset on the moon.
Against the backdrop of difficult relations between Ukraine and the current US presidential administration, users of the X platform (Twitter) recalled that Firefly Aerospace was founded by Ukrainian Maxim Polyakov, who was forced to leave the company in 2022 under pressure from the US government .
Apparently people have forgotten that Firefly went bankrupt and were resurrected by Max Polykov who invested $200 million and then was forced to give his share away when the US government was convinced that Russia would take over Ukraine in a few days. https://t.co/xN22MiDK5R
— Scott Manley (@DJSnM) March 2, 2025
«I am giving away all my 58% of Firefly shares for $1 to my co-founder and partner Tom (Tom Markusik — Ed.). Dear CFIUS, Air Force and 23 US agencies who betrayed me and are condemning me with all their actions over the past 15 months. I hope you are happy now. History will judge all of you guys. Max loves Ukraine and yes, I have a Ukrainian passport and I am the founder of Firefly!!!,» Max Polyakov wrote on his Facebook page.
Before that, the US government demanded that Polyakov sell his stake in Firefly Aerospace for «national security reasons.»
