As part of NASA’s Artemis campaign, the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, managed out of the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, is paving the way for conducting lunar science for the benefit of humanity.
Through the Artemis campaign, commercial robotic deliveries will perform science experiments, test technologies, and demonstrate capabilities on and around the Moon to help NASA explore in advance of Artemis Generation astronaut missions to the lunar surface, and ultimately crewed missions to Mars.
Firefly Aerospace’s first lunar mission, Blue Ghost Mission 1, set a historic milestone by successfully delivering science and technology instruments to the Moon on March 2, 2025. It touched down near a volcanic feature called Mons Latreille within Mare Crisium, a basin over 300 miles wide in the northeast quadrant of the Moon’s near side. The mission operated for 346 hours of daylight and just over 5 hours into the lunar night, marking the longest commercial operations on the Moon to date.
The lander successfully delivered 10 NASA science investigations and technology demonstrations including testing and demonstrating lunar drilling technology, regolith (lunar rocks and soil) sample collection capabilities, global navigation satellite system abilities, radiation tolerant computing, and lunar dust mitigation.
The data captured will benefit humanity in many ways, providing insights into how space weather and other cosmic forces may impact Earth. In this interview, Joseph Marlin, Deputy Blue Ghost Chief Engineer at Firefly Aerospace, delves deeper into how their first mission is establishing an improved awareness of the lunar environment ahead of future crewed missions and how it will help plan for long-duration surface operations under Artemis.
Tech Briefs: “There is no such thing as an easy Moon landing, especially on your first attempt,” was a comment from Firefly’s Chief Engineer at a press briefing after the Blue Ghost Mission 1. When you began the mission, did the Firefly team think it would achieve this goal?
Joseph Marlin: Firefly’s successful Blue Ghost mission on our first attempt is due to a combination of a few factors, including our technical innovation, vertical integration, robust testing, and unwavering dedication from the team. Blue Ghost’s core components were built in-house using many of the same flight-proven technologies common to Firefly’s launch and orbital vehicles for added reliability, so this gave us a lot of confidence right from the start. To build on that confidence, every Blue Ghost component was rigorously tested and qualified on a component level, and then we performed acceptance testing on the fully integrated lander. While the vehicle was undergoing launch processing, the team then conducted more than 500 hours of mission simulations in preparation for every nominal and off-nominal scenario. But it’s ultimately the collaboration and dedication from our incredible Firefly team that made it possible for us to quickly solve each of the challenges along the way. We started confidently because we had a reliable solution, and we knew we were going to test thoroughly and practice relentlessly. But more than that, the excellence of our team was the reason I was confident this mission would succeed from the start.
Tech Briefs: Can you elaborate on the key technical challenges the Blue Ghost lander faced during its 14-day lunar mission, and how the engineering team addressed them?
Marlin: One of the biggest challenges we faced on the Moon’s surface was operating through the heat of lunar noon, which is the hottest part of the lunar day when surface temperatures peaked at 230 °F at our landing site. Of course, we had modeled our lander’s thermal state in advance and had a plan for the high temperatures: most of the heat would be radiated to space using our radiators, and we also planned to power cycle some components to keep them cool. But we were limited in the data available for our models since the only lunar thermal data available is from the Apollo era. We discovered quickly that we were warming faster and higher than model predictions due to higher-than-expected impacts of regolith accumulation on our radiators and due to our proximity to a large crater reflecting sunlight onto the vehicle. The increased heat put us at risk of exceeding operational temperature limits for some of our components, including our batteries, radios, and antennas. But we were able to maintain operations during this time by extending our planned component power cycles to keep them cool, and with some creative ingenuity from the team.
For example, since our X-band antenna was located on a gimbal, we turned the antenna to use it as sunshade to keep our radio cool until the temperatures lowered and we were able to get back to full operations. Thanks to this and many other similar creative ideas, we didn’t have a single thermal failure on the vehicle despite the high temperatures. Ultimately, the data we were able to capture on radiator performance with regolith impingement, and how nearby terrain affects vehicle thermal equilibrium, is invaluable for future robotic and human missions.
Tech Briefs: The mission successfully operated all 10 NASA Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) instruments. Could you discuss any specific engineering modifications or integrations required to accommodate these diverse payloads?
Marlin: Firefly made a commitment to integrate and operate all 10 NASA payloads on Blue Ghost — the most ever flown on a CLPS mission. Each payload had unique requirements that had to be accommodated, and we worked hard to meet these to enable each payload to capture as much scientific and technology research as possible and make a global impact on the future of space exploration. For example, Firefly built a surface access arm that we deployed on the lunar surface upon landing to enable successful operations for the Electrodynamic Dust Shield (EDS) and the Lunar PlanetVac (LPV) payloads. LPV was then able to successfully collect, transfer, and sort lunar regolith from the Moon using pressurized nitrogen gas, proving to be a low cost, low mass solution for future robotic sample collection.
Meeting payload requirements wasn’t always easy. For example, some payloads had conflicting requirements. The LISTER drill generated a great deal of lofted dust as it drilled, which would have interfered with the coating samples on the Regolith Adherence Characterization (RAC) experiment, and so these had to be thoughtfully located on the vehicle to ensure they didn’t cause problems for each other. Several instruments on the vehicle required very precise and configurable pointing, including the Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment (LuGRE)’s GPS antenna, the Next Generation Retroreflector (NGLR), and the Lunar Environment heliospheric X-ray Imager (LEXI) telescope. Firefly built two 2-axis gimbals to precisely point these instruments at Earth over the course of the surface mission.
Tech Briefs: Blue Ghost transmitted over 119 GB of data back to Earth, surpassing mission requirements. What communication technologies or strategies were employed to achieve this data transmission efficiency? How will this data be used?
Marlin: Blue Ghost has an S-band radio and three low-gain antennas that can operate at up to 125 kilobits per second and an X-band radio and one steerable high-gain antenna that can operate at up to 10 megabits per second. This architecture provided robust communications and HD video and imagery transmission from the lunar surface. Once the data arrived at the ground station network on Earth, it was streamed to our Mission Operations Center in Texas in real time.
Tech Briefs: Looking ahead, how is Firefly Aerospace applying the lessons learned from this mission to enhance the design and functionality of future lunar landers?
Marlin: The Firefly team is in the process of analyzing nearly 120 GB of data that we captured during the mission, and all this data will be utilized to improve our models, algorithms, and testing for future missions. For example, the data we captured on terrain-lander thermal interactions and on lunar dust impingement on radiators will be used to improve our thermal models for all future missions.
In general, we’re thrilled with the performance of our Blue Ghost systems on Mission 1 after meeting all our mission objectives, and moving forward, we’ll continue to refine and improve each mission.
Tech Briefs: Can you share details about Blue Ghost Mission 2 and how it differs from this first successful landing? What new capabilities or goals will it focus on?
Marlin: Instead of just a single lander like Mission 1, Blue Ghost Mission 2 will deliver payloads to lunar orbit and the far side of the Moon in 2026 utilizing a stacked spacecraft configuration with our Blue Ghost lander and our Elytra Dark spacecraft. A lander very similar to our Blue Ghost Mission 1 vehicle will carry NASA’s LuSEE-Night radio telescope and several other NASA and commercial payloads. Since the radio telescope operates on the far side of the Moon to ensure a quiet radio environment, our Elytra Dark spacecraft is also required for this mission to forward commands and telemetry to and from Earth. But before that, Elytra will first transport Blue Ghost and the European Space Agency’s Lunar Pathfinder satellite to the Moon and deploy them in lunar orbit. Blue Ghost will then touch down on the far side of the Moon and operate for approximately 10 days. Elytra will remain in lunar orbit to provide relay communications and enable radio frequency calibration services for LuSEE-Night.
Tech Briefs: Why is returning to the Moon important for America, and what emerging technologies will play a key role in getting us there?
Marlin: Firstly, the Moon gives us the experience and technology advancements to prepare for exploration to Mars and beyond. It allows us to test and advance critical life-sustaining systems and habitats while being within days of travel from Earth, versus several months to Mars.
The Moon also offers resources, such as water, methane, and rare-Earth metals, that can be used to produce fuel, support manufacturing needs, and unlock new commercial applications. By enabling sustainable utilization of these resources, we can help support exploration to Mars and other planets. Due to the Moon’s low gravity, refueling resources on the Moon would dramatically reduce the cost and number of launches required to deliver vehicles and explorers to Mars and beyond.
Due to its proximity to our planet, Moon exploration can also unlock research that benefits life on Earth. For example, one of the instruments Firefly delivered to the Moon on Blue Ghost Mission 1 will provide new insights into how space weather and other cosmic forces impact Earth.
Tech Briefs: Firefly has been awarded multiple NASA CLPS contracts for upcoming lunar missions. With NASA increasingly collaborating with commercial space companies, how do you see the partnership working ahead? What advantages do commercial partnerships bring to lunar and deep-space missions?
Marlin: Commercial companies like Firefly can provide access to the Moon at around $100 million per mission, which is a fraction of the cost of government-led missions. Firefly is able to achieve this by leveraging innovative technologies, empowering our team to take ownership of their subsystems, and taking a rapid, iterative approach as we design, build, and test our spacecraft. Initiatives like CLPS that enable more commercial and government collaborations are critical to more rapidly advance humanity’s presence on the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
This article was written by Chitra Sethi, Editorial Director, SAE Media Group. For more information visit here .
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