On January 15, 2025, at 1:11 a.m. EST, NASA will launch the Blue Ghost moon lander from Firefly Aerospace and the Resilience lander from ispace aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space Center, Florida.
Blue Ghost will carry ten payloads, including the Lunar Environment Heliospheric X-ray Imager (LEXI), which will study Earth's magnetosphere's interaction with solar wind from a unique lunar perspective. This mission aims to enhance our understanding of space weather's impact on satellites and infrastructure on Earth.
ispace's Resilience, making its second attempt after a prior failure, will deliver six payloads, including a microalgae-based food production experiment. This mission marks a significant step in the growing commercial lunar exploration sector.
If successful, these missions will represent the second and third private landings on the moon, contributing to NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, which aims to foster private sector participation in lunar exploration.