A robotic spacecraft from an American startup gently set down on the moon’s near side early Sunday morning.
The Blue Ghost lander, built by Firefly Aerospace of Cedar Park, Texas, touched down at 3:34 a.m. Eastern time.
“You all stuck the landing,” Will Coogan, the Blue Ghost chief engineer, said during a livestream from the flight operations room. “We’re on the moon.”
It was a remarkable success for the company, achieving what many others have not.
“We got some moon dust on our boots,” Jason Kim, the chief executive of Firefly, said a few minutes later.
Among the countries, companies and organizations that have attempted in the 21st century to set down softly on the moon, only China can claim complete success on the first try. Others, including those from India, Russia, an Israeli nonprofit and a Japanese company, all crashed and carved new craters on the lunar surface.
