Moon rover contract signed between Firefly Aerospace and NASA
NewsAugust 06, 2025
CEDAR PARK, Tex. Space and defense technology provider Firefly Aerospace won a $176.7 million NASA Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) contract to deliver five NASA-sponsored payloads to the moon’s south pole in 2029.
According to the Firefly Aerospace announcement, the mission will use the company's Elytra orbital vehicle and Blue Ghost lunar lander to enable payload operations, including those that will evaluate 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 shape lunar infrastructure.
During Blue Ghost Mission 4 operations, Firefly’s Elytra Dark transfer vehicle will deploy the Blue Ghost lander into lunar orbit and then remain on orbit to act as a long-haul communications relay for the mission; Blue Ghost will then land near the moon’s south pole, deploy the rovers, and enable payloads operations with data/power/communications for more than 12 days on the lunar surface.
The NASA-sponsored payloads onboard Blue Ghost include two rovers – the MoonRanger rover and a Canadian Space Agency rover – as well as several measurement tools that also flew on Blue Ghost Mission 1, which landed on the moon in March 2025. These payloads are intended to uncover the composition and resources available at the moon’s south pole, advance lunar navigation, evaluate the chemical composition of lunar surface rock, 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 in lunar orbit for more than five years in support of Firefly’s Ocula lunar imaging service, which is aimed at being the first commercial lunar imaging service on the market (starting in 2026) with the intent of lunar mapping, mission planning, situational awareness, and mineral detection services.
