WASHINGTON -- NASA selected Firefly Aerospace for a third lunar lander mission, this one including a rover, to launch in 2028.
NASA announced Dec. 18 it awarded Firefly a task order though its Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program for a mission to the Gruithuisen Domes region on the near side of the moon. The task order is valued at $179.6 million.
The mission, using Firefly's Blue Ghost lander, will deliver to the moon six payloads to perform imaging, spectroscopy and other observations, as well as sample lunar regolith. Some of the instruments will be mounted on a rover that Firefly is offering from an unnamed "industry provider."
A key goal of the mission is to help scientists understand the formation of the Gruithuisen Domes, a region with rocks that appear to be made from magma rich in silica, similar to granite. On Earth, granite forms from plate tectonics and in the presence of water, both of which are lacking on the moon, making scientists unsure how the Gruithuisen Domes formed.
"Understanding the formation of the Gruithuisen Domes, as well as the ancient lava flows surrounding the landing site, will help the U.S. answer important questions about the lunar surface," said Joel Kearns, deputy associate administrator for exploration in NASA's Science Mission Directorate, in a statement.
The award is among the largest CLPS task orders to date, behind only the award to Astrobotic for its Griffin lander originally slated to carry NASA's VIPER lunar rover. That award, originally valued at $199.5 million, has since grown to more than $300 million.
This was the second of two major CLPS task orders NASA officials previously indicated they planned to award this year after a long gap to incorporate lessons learned from the first CLPS missions to fly, Astrobotic's Peregrine and Intuitive Machines' IM-1. NASA awarded a task order to Intuitive Machines in August for the IM-4 mission that will go to the lunar south pole region in 2027.
NASA also awarded a task order to Blue Origin in August to fly a camera payload on that company's Blue Moon Mark 1 lander that is flying a commercial demonstration mission in 2025.
The CLPS task order is the fourth for Firefly. That includes three lunar landers as well as one to provide radio frequency calibration services from orbit to support a radio science payload on the second lander mission.
The first mission, Blue Ghost 1 or "Ghost Riders in the Sky," is scheduled for launch in mid-January, with a landing in the Mare Crisium region of the near side of the moon about 45 days after launch. Blue Ghost 2 will follow in 2026, landing on the lunar farside. That mission will also deploy ESA's Lunar Pathfinder communications satellite into orbit.
Both the second and third Blue Ghost missions will use Firefly's Elytra Dark as an orbital transfer vehicle, delivering the landers to lunar orbit. Those vehicles will remain in lunar orbit to provide communications services.
"We have a production line of these landers," said Jason Kim, chief executive of Firefly, during a NASA media teleconference Dec. 17 to discuss the upcoming Blue Ghost 1 mission. "What's great about having a production line of these landers is that you learn from the first lander to the second lander, and then some."
"Anything we learn on Blue Ghost 1," he said, "I assure you we're going to make sure that we use those lessons learned to improve Blue Ghost 2 and on."