Weekend Score Through Today...

The extended weekend score through today, Monday, March 3 is Firefly 1, SpaceX 0.  We have to restrict this to Firefly's Blue Ghost lander and SpaceX's Starship flight test 8 and ignore things like last night's Falcon 9-carried Starlink 12-20 mission because it was a Falcon 9 launch and not a Starship. Not to mention that it was another Falcon 9 that lifted Blue Ghost into its translunar orbit injection.

That said, congratulations to Firefly's team for successfully landing their Blue Ghost lander on the moon at 3:34 AM EST Sunday morning, making Firefly Aerospace the first private company in world history to achieve that.  The first private lander was Intuitive Machine's IM-1, but although all the paying customers were happy with what they got from their landing on the moon, Odysseus - quickly nicknamed Odie, wasn't considered a successful landing.  During final approach, a leg on the lander broke and after engine cutoff Odie quickly face-planted on the moon. 

Blue Ghost apparently had better software and quite possibly its overall design as well.  In coverage of the landing, there is mention of obstacle avoidance being invoked in the autonomous landing software. 

A camera on Firefly's Blue Ghost lander captured a view of its shadow after touching down on the Moon just after sunrise. Earth looms over the horizon. Credit: Firefly Aerospace

"They’re just fired up right now in the mission control room," said Jason Kim, Firefly's CEO. "They were all just pent up, holding it all in because they were calm, collected, and cool the whole time. Every single thing was clockwork, even when we landed. After we saw everything was stable and upright, they were fired up."

Before IM-1 last year, it had been more than 50 years since an American spacecraft made a controlled landing on the Moon and all of those were government-run projects.  Similarly, China has landed four robotic missions on the Moon since 2013, including two landings on the Moon's far side and two sample return missions. India became the fourth country to land on the Moon in 2023, then Japan became the fifth in January 2024.  Sunday morning's Blue Ghost landing marked the first exception to that government-run predominance in landers. 

Intuitive Machines IM-2, or Athena, entered her circular lunar orbit today, March 3rd.  The the landing will be closer to the lunar South Pole than any other mission to date. 

Flight controllers expect Athena to complete 39 lunar orbits until her south pole region landing site has adequate sunlight to power surface operations.

Intuitive Machines expects a landing opportunity on March 6 at 11:32 a.m. CST. Live landing coverage is scheduled to start at 10:30 a.m. CT / 11:30 a.m. ET on the Intuitive Machines IM-2 mission page and NASA+. The content on both streams is identical.

As for Starship Flight Test 8, SpaceX's Missions Page hasn't posted a date for the next attempt yet.