Firefly’s Blue Ghost lunar lander makes historic touch down on the moon after nail-biting mission
A LUNAR lander has touched down on the surface of the moon - becoming the first "fully successful" landing by a private space craft.
Firefly's "Blue Ghost" has touched down on the slopes of an ancient volcano on the moon's surface.
Employees at the company cheered, hugged and screamed as the landing was confirmed from 360,000km away - just outside Austin, Texas.
The HQ reported: "We're on the moon," and said the lander was stable at around 8:30am British time.
There has been one commercial lander on the moon before - but it fell over as it touched down.
A lander called Odysseus, made by Houston-based company Intuitive Machines, made a lopsided soft touchdown last year.
Nasa has hailed the achievement, with Joel Kearn, one of the agency's space mission directors, saying: "They made it look easy. It's not easy."
Nicky Fox, another director, said: “It’s just an amazing, amazing achievement. I’m so proud of everyone in this room, because you all had a part in putting this lander on the moon.”
The hosts of the Blue Ghost webcast declared that Firefly “just became the first commercial company in history to complete a fully successful” moon touchdown.
Whilst the lander was built by a private company, it will be used by Nasa to carry out experiments.
It is carrying a drill, a vacuum and other kit to help us learn more about the lunar landscape.
Firefly received $101million from Nasa for carrying out the mission.
Blue Ghost will spend most of its time basking in sunlight, using its two solar panels to power the lander and its instruments.
But - after two weeks - night will fall, and temperatures will plunge to minus 170 degrees Celsuis.
Usually, darkness spells the end of lunar landing missions, but Blue Ghost hopes to remain active for a few hours.
Jason Kim, Firefly CEO, told CNN: "There’s five hours at the end of the 14 days where we’ll be performing operations into the lunar night and really test the limits of the system."
