Two Private Moon Landers to Launch on SpaceX Falcon 9

Two private moon landers, ispace's Resilience and Firefly's Blue Ghost, will launch together on SpaceX's Falcon 9 in January 2025.

Two private moon landers will blast off together aboard the same SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket next month in a major step forward for lunar exploration. Japanese firm ispace said its second moon mission, Mission 2, will launch together with Blue Ghost, a lunar lander from Texas-based Firefly Aerospace. It is slated to launch in mid-January 2025 from Florida's Space Coast, pending no delays.

Mission 2 will be the second attempt to send ispace to the moon. The first mission failed in April 2023. A lander called Hakuto-R carried the same payload but could not make it due to an onboard sensor malfunction. This time, the upgraded lander named Resilience will attempt a landing in Mare Frigoris, a large basaltic plain close to the north pole of the moon. Resilience will carry five payloads: a water electrolyzer, a food production module, a deep-space radiation probe, and also a commemorative alloy plate and the Tenacious microrover developed by ispace's Luxembourg-based subsidiary.

Resilience will take a low-energy path to the moon, aiming to land about four to five months after launch. If successful, it will operate on the lunar surface and deploy the Tenacious rover to collect moon dirt and gravel under a NASA contract.

Besides ispace, Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lander will also be launched on the Falcon 9 rocket. This mission, called "Ghost Riders in the Sky," will deliver 10 science instruments and technology demonstrations to the lunar surface for NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. Blue Ghost will reach lunar orbit about 45 days after launch and land in Mare Crisium, where it will operate for one lunar day, collecting critical data and imagery.

The missions have the potential to make history in itself as no private spacecraft has made a successful landing on the moon although Intuitive Machines' Odysseus did land on the moon earlier in 2024.