Firefly Aerospace Awarded $177 Million NASA Contract for Mission to the Moon’s South Pole

Firefly Space, a market leading space and defense technology company, led by Jason Kim(Chief Executive Officer), Darren Ma(Chief Financial Officer), Shea Ferring(Chief Technology Officer), Dan Fermon(Chief Operating Officer), Brad Warezak(Chief Information Officer), and others was awarded 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.

The mission will use Firefly’s Elytra orbital vehicle and Blue Ghost lunar lander to operate payloads aimed at assessing resources near the Moon’s south pole—such as hydrogen, water, and minerals—and analyzing radiation and thermal conditions critical to future astronauts and lunar infrastructure.

During Blue Ghost Mission 4, Firefly’s Elytra Dark transfer vehicle will deploy the Blue Ghost lander into lunar orbit and stay in orbit to serve as a long-haul communications relay. Blue Ghost will then land near the Moon’s south pole, deploy rovers, and support payload operations with data, power, and communications for over 12 days on the surface.

NASA-sponsored payloads on Blue Ghost include two rovers—the MoonRanger and a Canadian Space Agency rover—alongside instruments like the Laser Ablation Ionization Mass Spectrometer (LIMS), Laser Retroreflector Array (LRA), and SCALPSS, previously flown on Mission 1. These will support studies of the Moon’s south pole composition, regolith chemistry, navigation, and lander plume effects. After Mission 4, Elytra Dark will remain in lunar orbit for over five years to support Firefly’s Ocula imaging service, becoming the third Elytra Dark in orbit. The first two are scheduled for launch on Missions 2 (far side, 2026) and 3 (Gruithuisen Domes, 2028).