Second US private spacecraft successfully lands on the Moon

The spacecraft carries drills, vacuum equipment and other experiments from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

About the size of a small car, the Blue Ghost lander landed on autopilot at 3:35 a.m. ET near an ancient crater in an impact basin on the northeast edge of the near side of the moon, mission control at Firefly Aerospace confirmed.

(Photo: Firefly Aerospace)

The Blue Ghost lander successfully and uprightly landed on the Moon, making Firefly Aerospace the first private company to land a spacecraft on the Moon without crashing or landing upside down. To date, only five countries have achieved this feat: Russia, the United States, China, India and Japan. The Blue Ghost lander was specially designed for the purpose of landing on the Moon, standing 2 meters high and 3.5 meters wide, standing firmly on four legs.

Launched from Florida on January 15, the lander carries 10 experiments for NASA. The US space agency paid $101 million for the service, plus $44 million for the cost of scientific and technological equipment on board.

This is the third private mission under NASA's commercial lunar transportation program, which aims to tap private resources while waiting to return astronauts to Earth's natural satellite.

It is expected that on March 6, another lander named Athena of the American private company Intuitive Machines will also land on the Moon under NASA's program.