U.S.-based Firefly carried out the NASA-funded mission, which saw its Blue Ghost lander settle gently on the moon’s surface on the weekend. Its payloads include software from Quebec’s NGC Aerospace that can figure out where a spacecraft flying over the moon is based on the craters below, and a contribution from Ontario’s Integrity Testing Laboratory to an experiment testing how different materials shed or hold moon dust. (The Logic)

Talking point: Firefly’s landing seems (so far) to be the most successful private lunar mission yet. One by Japan’s iSpace ended in a destructive crash in 2023. Last year’s mission by another American company, Intuitive Machines, went better but its Odysseus lander hit hard, broke at least one leg and fell over, limiting its performance. After a 46-day trip to get to the moon, the Blue Ghost lander is expected to function for about two weeks, petering out a few hours into the freezing darkness of the two-week lunar night.