Recently, the young company Firefly Aerospace from Texas, created at one time by Ukrainian businessman Maxim Polyakov and later sold by him at the request of the authorities for $1, received a third contract from NASA to deliver payload to the Moon. This is the third such contract with Firefly and the second most expensive in the entire history of NASA’s cooperation with private companies.
Image source: Firefly Aerospace
The new Firefly mission will be historic – it will help the US collect images on the far side of the Moon. For this, as well as in general for delivering payloads from NASA and other companies to the Moon, Firefly will create the Blue Ghost 3 lunar landing module. The price of the issue will be $179.6 million. Previously, such a large contract with a private company NASA concluded only with the Astrobotic company. This company began building the Griffin lander to deliver NASA’s VIPER rover to the Moon. The case dragged on, and the contract value increased from $199.5 million to $300 million or more. The money has been spent, but no one is flying anywhere anymore. The private owner failed the mission, and the dispatch of the lunar rover was cancelled. So Firefly has a chance to become the first to fulfill its obligations under the most expensive private contract with NASA.
By the way, Firefly should fulfill its first contract to deliver NASA payload to the Moon very soon – in a month or so, sending the Blue Ghost 1 lander to the Moon. Initially, this mission was entrusted to the Israeli company SpaceIL. But soon after, she destroyed her Beresheet lander when it crash-landed on the Moon, and NASA decided not to work with her.
The Blue Ghost 2 mission is planned for 2026. If the Blue Ghost 1 mission lands on the visible side of the Moon in the Mare Crisis region (closer to the end of February 2025 or early March), then the Blue Ghost 2 lander will have to descend to the far side of the satellite. The Firefly Elytra Dark orbital modules for Blue Ghost 2 and 3 missions will act as signal relays.
The Blue Ghost 3 module is scheduled to be sent to the far side of the Moon in 2028. The module will not only deliver NASA payloads to the area of the mysterious Mons Gruithuisen domes, but will also collect images at the landing site. True, it is not yet clear what will be done with them. Perhaps they will study it on the spot. This mission will also be the first to deliver a lunar rover to a satellite by a private owner, since things didn’t work out with Astrobotic. The manufacturer of the lunar rover has not been named. It will probably also be created by a private company.