NASA Awards Contract for Lunar South Pole Mission
CLPS Contact Valued at $177 Million Goes to Firefly Aerospace
NASA has awarded a $176.7 million CLPS contract to Firefly Aerospace to deliver five NASA-sponsored payloads to the Moon’s south pole in 2029. The mission will utilize Firefly’s Elytra orbital vehicle and Blue Ghost lunar lander to enable payload operations that include evaluating the Moon’s south pole resources, such as hydrogen, water, and other minerals, and studying the radiation and thermal environment that could affect future astronauts and lunar infrastructure.
"We’ve set the bar high, and we aim to continue setting new records in our missions to come with our active production line of Blue Ghost landers.”
Jason Kim, Firefly Aerospace
During Blue Ghost Mission 4 operations, Firefly’s Elytra Dark transfer vehicle will first deploy the Blue Ghost lander into lunar orbit and remain on orbit to provide a long-haul communications relay for the mission. Blue Ghost will then land in the Moon’s south pole region, deploy the rovers, and enable payload operations with data, power, and communications services for more than 12 days on the lunar surface.
“Following our first Blue Ghost mission that made history just a few months ago, this bold Firefly team proved we have the right mix of grit, innovation, and dedication to not only stick the landing, but also complete all scientific objectives for our payload partners,” said Jason Kim, CEO of Firefly Aerospace. "We’ve set the bar high, and we aim to continue setting new records in our missions to come with our active production line of Blue Ghost landers.”
The NASA-sponsored payloads onboard Blue Ghost include two rovers – the MoonRanger rover and a Canadian Space Agency rover – as well as a Laser Ablation Ionization Mass Spectrometer (LIMS), a Laser Retroreflector Array (LRA), and the Stereo Cameras for Lunar Plume Surface Studies (SCALPSS), which also flew on Blue Ghost Mission 1. These payloads will help uncover the composition and resources available at the Moon’s south pole, advance lunar navigation, evaluate the chemical composition of lunar regolith, and further study the effects of a lander’s plume on the Moon’s surface during landings.
Following Blue Ghost Mission 4 operations, Elytra Dark will remain operational in lunar orbit for more than five years in support of Firefly’s Ocula lunar imaging service. The mission enables a third Elytra Dark in Firefly’s growing constellation to provide customers with faster revisit times for lunar mapping, mission planning, situational awareness, and mineral detection services. The first two Elytra Dark vehicles will launch as part of Blue Ghost Mission 2 to the far side of the Moon in 2026 and Blue Ghost Mission 3 to the Gruithuisen Domes in 2028.
“Firefly’s Elytra Dark spacecraft are great companions for Blue Ghost – they’re highly maneuverable vehicles built with the same flight-proven components and propulsion system that successfully landed Blue Ghost on the Moon,” said Chris Clark, Vice President of Spacecraft. “As our Elytra constellation continues to grow in lunar orbit, Firefly is in a unique position to provide lunar imaging services and a communications relay for missions anywhere on the Moon’s surface. And with extra payload capacity on both Elytra and Blue Ghost, we invite additional government and commercial customers to join our fourth mission that’s built upon the same reliable architecture and led by the same trusted team.”
The rovers and instruments that are part of this newly awarded flight include:
MoonRanger is an autonomous microrover that will explore the lunar surface. MoonRanger will collect images and telemetry data while demonstrating autonomous capabilities for lunar polar exploration. Its onboard Neutron Spectrometer System instrument will study hydrogen-bearing volatiles and the composition of lunar regolith, or soil.
Lead development organizations: NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, and Carnegie Mellon University and Astrobotic, both in Pittsburgh.Stereo Cameras for Lunar Plume Surface Studies will use enhanced stereo imaging photogrammetry, active illumination, and ejecta impact detection sensors to capture the impact of the rocket exhaust plume on lunar regolith as the lander descends on the Moon’s surface. The high-resolution stereo images will help predict lunar regolith erosion and ejecta characteristics, as bigger, heavier spacecraft and hardware are delivered to the Moon near each other in the future.
Lead development organization: NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.Laser Retroreflector Array is an array of eight retroreflectors on an aluminum support structure that enables precision laser ranging, a measurement of the distance between the orbiting or landing spacecraft to the reflector on the lander. The array is a passive optical instrument, which functions without power, and will serve as a permanent location marker on the Moon for decades to come.
Lead development organization: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.A CSA Rover is designed to access and explore remote South Pole areas of interest, including permanently shadowed regions, and to survive at least one lunar night. The CSA rover has stereo cameras, a neutron spectrometer, two imagers (visible to near-infrared), a radiation micro-dosimeter, and a NASA-contributed thermal imaging radiometer developed by the Applied Physics Laboratory. These instruments will advance our understanding of the physical and chemical properties of the lunar surface, the geological history of the Moon, and potential resources such as water ice. It will also improve our understanding of the environmental challenges that await future astronauts and their life support systems.
Lead development organization: CSA.Laser Ionization Mass Spectrometer is a mass spectrometer that will analyze the element and isotope composition of lunar regolith. The instrument will utilize a Firefly-built robotic arm and Titanium shovel that will deploy to the lunar surface and support regolith excavation. The system will then funnel the sample into its collection unit and use a pulsed laser beam to identify differences in chemistry compared to samples studied in the past, like those collected during the Apollo program. Grain-by-grain analyses will provide a better understanding of the chemical complexity of the landing site and the surrounding area, offering insights into the evolution of the Moon.
Lead development organization: University of Bern in Switzerland.