The lakeside terrace of The Broadmoor is a slightly different landing surface than that of the moon, but Firefly Aerospace made both work.

The Blue Ghost lander in January achieved the first soft landing on the moon by a commercial company. It was one of two moon landing attempts, but Firefly’s was the only complete success.

And while the company did not brag, opting instead to focus on its two future moon landings, it did bring a full-scale replica of the Blue Ghost to the 40th Space Symposium.

While there is nothing routine about flying to the moon, Blue Ghost successfully completed everything it needed to ahead of its big test.

For Firefly Launch Vehicle Integration Manager Cody Maessen, the most stressful part of the mission was the landing.

“That was a critical moment because you know, after seeing such success throughout the whole mission … there’s no going back or retrying,” he said. “And and so seeing all that success up to the landing point you know this is that last step to really get us there.”

Roughly one month later, the Intuitive Machines IM-2 attempted to land on the moon. While the mission went well for the most part, moon dust kicked up by the descent caused interference with onboard sensors. Because of this the lander did not land perfectly and ended up on its side, highlighting the inherent risk present in any kind of lunar landing.

But it was a risk that Firefly planned for, mitigated and avoided.

Blue Ghost’s mission lasted about 14 earth days, which is one full day on the moon.

“We had expected to operate through the lunar day and then we went into lunar night knowing that we wouldn’t be receiving any electrical power and (with) the temperature changes (Blue Ghost) wouldn’t survive through the lunar night,” Maessen said. “There’s certainly capabilities that could extend that duration, but we didn’t incorporate that into this first mission.”

Blue Ghost’s first mission was a resounding success. After 14 days, the probe was allowed to go dark.

But Firefly is not yet done. In 2026, they are contracted to take a European Space Agency communications satellite to the moon with a second Blue Ghost lander.

Blue Ghost Mission 2 will land on the far side of the moon with NASA and commercial partner modules onboard.

But in the meantime, Firefly is working on their medium launch vehicle — a two-stage rocket that can carry up to 35,935 pounds into orbit — and has missions with Lockheed Martin Space fast approaching.

“Flight Six (with Lockheed Martin) is on the pad at Vandenberg Space Force base in California,” Maessen said.