As a private lunar lander closed in on the moon early Sunday morning (March 2), poised to make history with the first fully successful landing, NASA’s acting chief Janet Petro was excited.
And why not? NASA and its commercial partner Firefly Aerospace were just 24 minutes away from what became the successful landing of the Blue Ghost moon lander on the plain of Mare Crisium — a historic soft landing for a privately built spacecraft. The probe is carrying 10 instruments to study the moon for NASA as the agency’s Artemis program works toward returning astronauts to the lunar surface by 2027.
