It has been quite a while since man has walked on the moon, but many hope that humans will be headed back in the relatively near future. Part of the preparation for sending people to the Moon (and later, Mars) is sending unmanned landers to the surface to learn more about it and help gather information that will help with manned missions.

While the last time we went to the moon, it was all handled by NASA, today there are quite a few private companies that are providing the service. On March 3rd, 2025, Firefly Aerospace became one of the first private spacecraft to make this accomplishment. In fact, they claim that they are the very first. This is debated, however, since Intuitive Machines landed their Odysseus lander months ago. That lander, however, did not land properly, and the company lost connection to it soon after.

Whether you consider the Blue Ghost lander from Firefly Aerospace the first or the second lander from a private company, it is quite an accomplishment. Soon after its landing, the company established communications with the lander, and they published a picture of the sun rising over the surface of the moon. In their X post, they said:

“Rise and shine! Firefly’s #BlueGhost lander captured its first sunrise on the Moon, marking the beginning of the lunar day and the start of surface operations in its new home. Our #GhostRiders have already begun operating many of the 10 @NASA payloads aboard the lander and will show more.”

NASA contracted Firefly Aerospace to bring several instruments to the surface of the moon to conduct experiments. The lander is set to operate for one lunar day, which is about two weeks here on Earth. This amount of time is set primarily by the fact that once the sun sets on the moon, the temperatures will drop dramatically to the point that most, if not all, instruments will be destroyed.

In a statement, Firefly CTO Shea Ferring said:

“With the hardest part behind us, Firefly looks forward to completing more than 14 days of surface operations, again raising the bar for commercial cislunar capabilities.” Ferring later went on to say, “We want to thank NASA for entrusting in the Firefly team, and we look forward to delivering even more science data that supports future human missions to the Moon and Mars.”

This lander boasts 27 gigs of data storage that has already been used to collect information during its journey and landing. That data was transmitted back to Firely to be distributed to NASA and other groups for further study.

If you think that’s impressive, check out this story about a “goldmine” of lithium that was found in the U.S. that could completely change the EV battery game.