First HD Moon Footage
In 1969, NASA broadcast the Apollo 11 moon landing with a simple TV camera. More than fifty years later, technology has rocketed forward, and on Sunday, March 2 Firefly Aerospace made history when its Blue Ghost lunar spacecraft touched down upright on the Moon—the first time a private company has achieved such a feat.
Standing six feet tall and spanning eleven feet wide, Blue Ghost is equipped with cameras on all sides. They captured every angle of the descent, and three days after touchdown, Firefly released high-definition footage of the landing site in Mare Crisium. Mission control precisely identified hazards and guided the craft to its target, prompting Firefly’s jubilant announcement: “We have Moon dust on our boots!”
The company’s first lunar mission, dubbed “Ghost Riders in the Sky,” launched on January 15 aboard a SpaceX rocket as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. After 45 days of solar-powered travel, Blue Ghost became the first commercial spacecraft to complete a fully successful lunar landing, carrying 10 scientific instruments including a deep-surface drill to measure temperature. It also delivered the first HD footage from the Moon—a milestone now shared worldwide by CBS News and Firefly.