Firefly wins new NASA lunar lander contract, worth $176.7 million
NASA announced yesterday that it has awarded Firefly a $176.7 million contract to use the company’s Blue Ghost lunar lander to deliver two rovers and three other science instruments to the Moon’s south pole region.
Under the new CLPS task order, Firefly is tasked with delivering end-to-end payload services to the lunar surface, with a period of performance from Tuesday to March 29, 2030. The company’s lunar lander is targeted to land at the Moon’s South Pole region in 2029.
This is Firefly’s fifth task order award and fourth lunar mission through CLPS. Firefly’s first delivery successfully landed on the Moon’s near side in March 2025 with 10 NASA payloads. The company’s second mission, targeting a launch in 2026, includes a lunar orbit drop-off of a satellite combined with a delivery to the lunar surface on the far side. Firefly’s third lunar mission will target landing in the Gruithuisen Domes on the near side of the Moon in 2028, delivering six experiments to study that enigmatic lunar volcanic terrain.
One of the rovers is being built in partnership with Canada.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
NASA announced yesterday that it has awarded Firefly a $176.7 million contract to use the company’s Blue Ghost lunar lander to deliver two rovers and three other science instruments to the Moon’s south pole region.
Under the new CLPS task order, Firefly is tasked with delivering end-to-end payload services to the lunar surface, with a period of performance from Tuesday to March 29, 2030. The company’s lunar lander is targeted to land at the Moon’s South Pole region in 2029.
This is Firefly’s fifth task order award and fourth lunar mission through CLPS. Firefly’s first delivery successfully landed on the Moon’s near side in March 2025 with 10 NASA payloads. The company’s second mission, targeting a launch in 2026, includes a lunar orbit drop-off of a satellite combined with a delivery to the lunar surface on the far side. Firefly’s third lunar mission will target landing in the Gruithuisen Domes on the near side of the Moon in 2028, delivering six experiments to study that enigmatic lunar volcanic terrain.
One of the rovers is being built in partnership with Canada.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
I don’t agree with Rand Simberg—though I thought to post this here, since his own website is a bit odd looking
https://reason.org/policy-study/commercial-space-should-lead-us-return-to-moon/
Transterrestrial Musings is easier to navigate.
The problem with Rand’s vision is that the SLS he and others bash isn’t the one doing cartwheels.
Reason.org also attacked tariffs as subsidies
https://reason.com/2025/07/25/if-trump-wants-american-businesses-to-thrive-he-should-get-rid-of-government-subsidies/
Reagan said similar nonsense—which is why I ask folks if they were better off before Ronnie back when one breadwinner’s wage could take care of a family—or afterwards…where free trade was in fact a far worse redistribution of wealth from Americans to the Third World than foreign aid ever was.
Since I know the answer to that question, I regard Simberg’s plan as delusional.
Apollo’s strength was exactly because of how many lives it touched, the 7-to-1 return on investment. Sadly, Rand is one of many who prefer rockets to be reusable—and American jobs expendable.
Boo and hiss Mike Griffin all you wish—he at least authored a real textbook on spacecraft design.
Jeff Wright wrote: “Apollo’s strength was exactly because of how many lives it touched, the 7-to-1 return on investment. Sadly, Rand is one of many who prefer rockets to be reusable—and American jobs expendable.”
With each Falcon 9 approaching 30 reuses, I think we can safely say that there is a much greater than 7-to-1 return on investment with Falcon 9. As for American jobs, how many tens of thousands of American jobs have been created to make and operate all the new commercial satellites being launched, now that the cost of a launch has fallen so much? And once we have products returning from space, how many more lives will be touched and saved by the pharmaceuticals alone?
Fewer man-hours per launch allows for more satellites to be launched, which allows for more products for we Americans, causing more launches, which also requires more man-hours for the overall number of launches. It is not a zero sum game. The net benefit increases with decreasing launch costs, meaning fewer man-hours per launch.
Doesn’t SpaceX build about as many Falcon booster stages as ULA and each of the other launch companies? Yet its lower cost results in so much more productivity in space, which require so many more jobs here in America. SpaceX also builds more upper stages than any other company — than every other company combined, as of last year.
Apollo’s weakness was its cost, which is why it was cancelled. The cost was high, because it required so many jobs just to keep it flying.