The second ever commercial landing on the moon comes amid a flurry of lunar exploration activity that will see around a dozen missions this year alone

As part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative involving private aerospace companies delivering payloads to the moon’s surface, Texas-based Firefly Aerospace’s private lunar lander—carrying a drill,

Blue Ghost carries 10 NASA payloads and will spend 14 days conducting scientific and technological demonstrations, including lunar sample collection, subsurface drilling and X-ray imaging.