Firefly's Blue Ghost Lander Begins Historic Lunar Drilling Mission

The robotic lander is collecting heat-flow data and geological insights to aid future lunar exploration under NASA's Artemis program.

Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lander successfully landed upright on the Moon's Mare Crisium on March 2, 2025, as part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative.
The lander is conducting the Lunar Instrumentation for Subsurface Thermal Exploration with Rapidity (LISTER) experiment, marking the first robotic collection of lunar heat-flow data since the Apollo missions.
LISTER's pneumatic drill, developed by Texas Tech University and Honeybee Robotics, is designed to measure thermal conductivity and heat flow by drilling nearly 10 feet into the lunar surface.
The mission aims to provide insights into the Moon's geological evolution and support the development of sustainable human exploration under NASA's Artemis program.
Blue Ghost carries 10 NASA payloads, including experiments on lunar dust mitigation and regolith adhesion, and is expected to operate for a full lunar day (14 Earth days).