Last year, a spacecraft built by Intuitive Machines through a NASA-sponsored program put the U.S. back on the moon for the first time since the end of the Apollo program, but the lander ended up tipping on its side and operated briefly on the surface.
Now another U.S. company – Firefly Aerospace – on Sunday added its lunar lander to the win list, becoming the first private entity to pull off a fully successful moon landing.
Both U.S. businesses are part of NASA’s effort to support commercial deliveries to the moon ahead of astronaut missions later this decade.
The moon is littered with wreckage from failed landings over the years. A rundown on the moon’s winners and losers:
First victories The Soviet Union’s Luna 9 successfully touches down on the moon in 1966, after its predecessors crash or miss the moon altogether. The U.S. follows four months later with Surveyor 1. Both countries achieve more robotic landings, as the race heats up to land men. Apollo rules NASA clinches the space race with the Soviets in 1969 with a moon landing by Apollo 11’s Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. Twelve astronauts explore the surface over six missions, before the program ends with Apollo 17 in 1972. Still the only country to send humans to the moon, the U.S. hopes to return crews to the surface by the end of 2026 or so, a year after a lunar fly-around by astronauts. China emerges China, in 2013, becomes the third country to successfully land on the moon, delivering a rover named Yutu, Chinese for jade rabbit. China follows with the Yutu-2 rover in 2019, this time touching down on the moon’s unexplored far side – an impressive first. A sample return mission on the moon’s near side in 2020 yields nearly 4 pounds (1.7 kilograms) of lunar rocks and dirt. Another sample return mission from the far side in 2024 delivers rocks and soil from the less explored part of the moon . Seen as NASA’s biggest moon rival, China aims to put its astronauts on the moon by 2030.
Russia stumbles In 2023, Russia tries for its first moon landing in nearly a half-century, but the Luna 25 spacecraft smashes into the moon. The country’s previous lander – 1976’s Luna 24 – not only landed, but returned moon rocks to Earth.
India triumphs on take 2 After its first lander slams into the moon in 2019, India regroups and launches Chandrayaan-3 (Hindi for moon craft) in 2023. The craft successfully touches down, making India the fourth country to score a lunar landing. The win comes just four days after Russia’s crash-landing.
Japan lands sideways Japan becomes the fifth country to land successfully on the moon, with its spacecraft touching down in January. The craft lands on the wrong side, compromising its ability to generate solar power, but manages to crank out pictures and science before falling silent when the long lunar night sets in.
Private moon landing attempts A privately funded lander from Israel, named Beresheet, Hebrew for “in the beginning,” crashes into the moon in 2019. A Japanese entrepreneur’s company, ispace, launches a lunar lander in 2023, but it, too, wrecks.
Intuitive Machines becomes the first private outfit to achieve a safe moon landing. The lander tipped over on its side in 2024, but worked briefly with limited communications. Another U.S. company – Astrobotic Technology – tried to send a lander to the moon the same year, but had to give up because of a fuel leak, eventually returning to Earth and burning up over the Pacific.
There’s another private rush to the moon this year after Firefly landed Blue Ghost, delivering experiments for NASA. Intuitive Machines and ispace also plan more moon deliveries.
