Firefly’s Blue Ghost Lunar Lander Earns 2025 Collier Trophy

Spacecraft beats out Boom Supersonic’s XB-1 demonstrator, Wing’s drone delivery service, and other nominees.

Jack Daleo

Thursday, March 19, 2026 at 12:00 PM ET

Verified

Edited By:

Travis Tingle

Firefly’s Blue Ghost in 2025 became the first commercially built lunar lander to successfully touch down and operate on the moon. [Credit: Firefly Aerospace]

Key Takeaways:

Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost Mission 1 won the 2025 Robert J. Collier Trophy for achieving the first successful commercial lunar landing.
The mission demonstrated the private sector's capability to conduct complex lunar operations, previously achieved only by nation-states, at a significantly lower cost, while also collecting valuable scientific data.
Blue Ghost Mission 1 operated on the lunar surface for two weeks, longer than any other commercial mission, and deployed multiple NASA payloads to study the moon.
Firefly Aerospace plans further CLPS missions, including deploying additional landers and rovers, and establishing Ocula, a commercial lunar imaging and mapping service.

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Continuing the trend of recent years, the 2025 Robert J. Collier Trophy went to a recipient conducting activities far beyond Earth’s atmosphere.

The National Aeronautic Association (NAA) on Wednesday announced that the team behind Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1—the first successful commercial lunar landing—took home the prestigious trophy, awarded annually since 1911 for the “greatest achievement in aeronautics or astronautics in America.”