How Commercial Moon Landers Work—and Why They Matter

The New Space Race Is Commercial

For decades, landing on the Moon meant a multi-billion-dollar government project requiring years of development. That model is changing fast. Through a program called Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS), NASA now hires private companies to build, launch, and land spacecraft on the Moon—delivering scientific instruments the way a courier delivers packages.

The result is a new generation of compact, relatively affordable lunar landers operated by American startups, with missions launching nearly every year rather than once per decade.

What Is CLPS and How Does It Work?

Established in 2018, CLPS is a $2.6 billion indefinite-delivery contract pool that currently includes 14 eligible vendors. Rather than designing its own spacecraft, NASA identifies the payloads it wants on the Moon—science instruments, technology demonstrations, environmental sensors—and issues task orders to competing companies. Each vendor is responsible for the entire chain: building the lander, arranging a launch, navigating to the Moon, and setting down safely.

This model inverts how planetary missions traditionally worked. NASA no longer specifies the spacecraft design; it simply defines what needs to land and where. Companies earn fixed-price contracts typically worth $77 million to $200 million per mission—a fraction of what a traditional NASA-managed lander would cost. For comparison, a government-directed lunar lander of similar scope could run up to $2 billion, according to industry analyses cited by Payload Space.

The Mechanics of a Lunar Landing

Every CLPS lander must solve the same fundamental engineering challenge: travel roughly 239,000 miles to a world with no atmosphere, no GPS, and no second chances.

The journey typically takes several days to weeks. After launch on a commercial rocket, the spacecraft enters a trajectory toward the Moon, performs a braking burn to enter lunar orbit, and then executes a precisely timed powered descent. With no air to slow it down, the lander relies entirely on rocket thrust—firing main engines against the direction of travel to reduce speed from orbital velocity to near-zero at touchdown.

Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lander, for instance, uses a LEROS 4-ET bipropellant engine capable of more than 1,000 newtons of thrust for both orbital insertion and descent. The lander carries up to 240 kg of payload to the surface and supplies payloads with over 400 watts of power, along with 360-degree HD imaging and direct-to-Earth communications.

Missions So Far: Hits and Near-Misses

The CLPS era opened in early 2024. Astrobotic's Peregrine lander launched in January 2024 but suffered a propellant leak shortly after launch and never reached the Moon, re-entering Earth's atmosphere after ten days. Intuitive Machines' Odysseus (IM-1) followed in February 2024 and became the first U.S. spacecraft to soft-land on the Moon in over 50 years—but it tipped sideways on landing, limiting its science operations. A second Intuitive Machines mission targeting the lunar south pole also experienced a tilt on touchdown.

The program's clearest success to date came in March 2025, when Firefly's Blue Ghost executed a flawless landing at Mare Crisium, operated all 10 of its NASA payloads for a record 346 hours on the surface, and became the first commercial lander to track GPS signals from lunar distance—according to Spaceflight Now. It also robotically drilled deeper into the lunar soil than any previous commercial mission.

What the Science Is For

CLPS payloads are not chosen at random. They address specific gaps in NASA's knowledge needed before humans return to the Moon under the Artemis program. Current missions test:

• Radiation-tolerant computing—electronics that survive the Moon's harsh particle environment
• Lunar dust mitigation—dust clogs mechanisms and degrades solar panels; understanding its behavior is critical
• Subsurface drilling and regolith sampling—probing below the surface for water ice and mineral resources
• Navigation systems—demonstrating that lunar GPS-like positioning is feasible for future crewed missions

Thermal data from Blue Ghost, for example, will directly inform the design of habitats and equipment for future astronauts.

Why the Commercial Model Changes Everything

The CLPS approach does more than cut costs. It enables a cadence of lunar missions—multiple flights per year from different providers—that was impossible under the old model of bespoke, decade-long government programs. Each mission builds institutional knowledge for companies that are simultaneously developing landers for paying commercial clients beyond NASA.

The Planetary Society notes that the program also welcomes international and commercial payloads alongside NASA instruments, seeding the foundations of a broader lunar economy. Upcoming CLPS flights from Firefly, Blue Origin, Draper, and Astrobotic will target locations ranging from the lunar near side to the far side and polar regions—building a map of scientifically and strategically important sites before the first boots touch the surface.