SpaceX Launches Blue Ghost and Resilience Lunar Landers Toward Moon on Falcon 9's 100th Pad 39A Liftoff

Jan 15, 2025, 01:10 PM

SpaceX successfully launched two private lunar landers, Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost and ispace's Resilience (also known as HAKUTO-R M2), aboard a Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space Center's pad 39A in Florida on January 15, 2025. The launch marked the 100th liftoff from pad 39A for Falcon 9. The mission aims to deliver scientific experiments to the Moon under NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. Blue Ghost, carrying ten payloads for NASA, including a vacuum designed to collect lunar soil and a drill to measure subsurface temperatures, is expected to reach the Moon in approximately 45 days. ispace's Resilience, making a second attempt at a lunar landing after a previous unsuccessful effort, will also arrive at the Moon in about 45 days. Both landers were launched on the same Falcon 9 rocket, demonstrating the capability to send multiple payloads to the Moon on a single mission. The Falcon 9's booster successfully returned and was recovered, contributing to SpaceX's reusable rocket initiative. The mission supports NASA's goal of establishing a sustained human presence on the lunar surface by the end of the decade.