NASA Selects Firefly Aerospace for Lunar Mission in 2026 To Deliver Payloads to the Farside of the Moon

NASA announced that it has selected the Cedar Park, Texas-based private aerospace firm and commercial space-launch vehicle designer Firefly Aerospace, to develop both a robotic lunar lander to deliver multiple payloads to the far side of the Moon and a communication satellite to orbit the subject lunar area and relay data from there.

(Photo : JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)
A half moon rises as the Artemis I unmanned lunar rocket prepares to lift off from pad 39B at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on November 16, 2022.

Debut Mission of Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost

According to Space.com, the launch will initially put the European Space Agency's (ESA) Lunar Pathfinder communications and navigation satellite into an elliptical orbit around the Moon to transmit messages between Earth and the payloads on the surface.

NASA released their announcement on Tuesday, March 14, saying that the $112 million contract, awarded via NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) effort and falls under the wider umbrella of the agency's Artemis program, stipulates a delivery date favorable to a 2026 mission launch.

NASA's Science Mission Directorate associate administrator Nicola Fox noted in the press release that the American space agency continues to find ways at learning more about the universe; and going to the far side of the Moon will help scientists understand some more of the fundamental physical processes that occurred during the early history of the cosmos.

Meanwhile, Firefly Aerospace CEO Bill Weber said in a separate press release that the mission will be the debut of their company's unique two-stage Blue Ghost spacecraft that will offer not just NASA but other space agencies and customers as well as multiple deployment options as the focus of the space industry has shifted to building infrastructure in the lunar and Martian surfaces.

This is the second CLPS contract that Firefly Aeronautics has received after being chosen in 2021 to place ten payloads on the Moon's near side. The Blue Ghost mission will launch in 2024 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. China's Chang'e-4 lander and rover mission conducted the first landing on the lunar far side in 2019.

Three Payloads Firefly Aerospace To Be Sent to the Far Side of the Moon

As per Aero-News Network, the three payloads scheduled for delivery with a projected weight of around 1,090 pounds (494.5 kilograms) when combined are the following:

Lunar Surface Electromagnetics Experiment-Night (LuSEE-Night)- The device will use deployable antennas and radio receivers to make the first observations of sensitive radio waves that originated in the Dark Ages. The Planetary Missions Program Office at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, will be managing it for the agency.
Lunar Pathfinder- It is a communications and data-relay satellite that will offer communication services to lunar missions through S-band and UHF linkages to lunar rovers and orbiters, as well as an X-band link to Earth.
User Terminal (UT)- This payload is comprised of a software-defined radio, an antenna, a network switch, and a sample data source that will set a new standard for the S-Band Proximity-1 space communication technology. UT will be utilized to commission the Lunar Pathfinder and guarantee that it is ready to send communications to LuSEE-Night.