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Wanted: bright ideas to develop the lunar economy
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By NASA
As part of NASA’s Artemis campaign, the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, managed out of Johnson Space Center in Houston, is paving the way for conducting lunar science for the benefit of humanity.
Through CLPS, NASA teams worked closely with commercial companies to develop a new model for space exploration, enabling a sustainable return to the Moon. These commercial missions deliver NASA science and technology to the lunar surface, providing insights into the environment and demonstrating new technologies that will support future astronauts—on the Moon and, eventually, on Mars.
Carrying a suite of NASA science and technology, Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 successfully landed at 3:34 a.m. EST on Sunday, March 2, 2025, near a volcanic feature called Mons Latreille within Mare Crisium, a more than 300-mile-wide basin located in the northeast quadrant of the Moon’s near side.Firefly Aerospace Intuitive Machines’ IM-2 captured an image March 6, 2025, after landing in a crater from the Moon’s South Pole. The lunar lander is on its side about 820 feet from the intended landing site, Mons Mouton. In the center of the image between the two lander legs is the Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment 1 suite, which shows the drill deployed.Credit: Intuitive Machines 2025: A Year of Lunar Firsts
This year has already seen historic milestones. Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 successfully delivered 10 science and technology instruments to the Moon on March 2, 2025. It touched down near a volcanic feature called Mons Latreille within Mare Crisium, a basin over 300 miles wide in the northeast quadrant of the Moon’s near side. Intuitive Machines’ IM-2 Mission, landed near the Moon’s South Pole on March 6, marking the southernmost lunar landing ever achieved.
The lunar deliveries for NASA have collected valuable insights and data to inform the next giant leap in humanity’s return to the Moon, helping scientists address challenges like lunar dust mitigation, resource utilization, and radiation tolerance.
Meet the Johnson employees contributing to lunar innovations that are helping to shape the future of human presence on the Moon.
Mark Dillard: Pioneering Payload Integration
Official NASA portrait of CLPS Payload Integration Manager Mark Dillard. NASA/James Blair Mark Dillard, Blue Ghost Mission 1 payload integration manager, has been at the forefront of space exploration for more than 40 years, including 28 years with the International Space Station Program. Beyond ensuring all NASA payloads are integrated onto the lunar landers, he oversees schedules, costs, and technical oversight while fostering strong partnerships with CLPS vendors and NASA science teams.
“I believe NASA is about to enter its next Golden Age,” said Dillard. “The enthusiasm of Firefly’s engineering team is contagious, and it has been a privilege to witness their success.”
Dillard’s career includes five years as NASA’s resident manager in Torino, Italy, where he oversaw the development of International Space Station modules, including three logistics modules, the European Space Agency’s Columbus module, and two space station nodes.
Mark Dillard in the clean room with Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 lander behind him. “Like Apollo, Shuttle, and the International Space Station Programs, Artemis will add the next building block for space exploration,” said Dillard. “The CLPS initiative is a significant building block, aiming to establish reliable and long-term access to the lunar surface.”
Susan Lederer: Guiding Science in Real Time
Official portrait of CLPS Project Scientist Susan Lederer.NASA/Bill Stafford Susan Lederer, IM-2 project scientist, has spent years ensuring all the NASA instruments are fully prepared for lunar operations. She oversees real-time science operations from IM’s Nova Control Center, working to maximize the mission’s scientific return and prepare for the next generation of astronauts to explore the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
“We have done our best with remote data, but the only way to truly understand the Moon—how to drill for resources, how to live on another celestial body—is to go there and do the experiments,” she said. “Now, we get to do that.”
Lederer’s path to CLPS was shaped by a background in space exploration, astrophysics, and planetary science. She has contributed to multiple spacecraft missions, including NASA’s Deep Impact mission, which sent a projectile into Comet Tempel 1, and a separate mission that retrieved a sample from asteroid Itokawa.
On Ascension Island, a remote joint U.S. Air Force and Royal Air Force base, she co-led the construction of a 20,000-pound optical telescope to study space debris. Her work spans collaborations with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a tenure as a physics professor, and the design of impact experiments at NASA’s Experimental Impact Lab, where she used a vertical gun firing projectiles at speeds exceeding those of sniper rifles to study asteroid and comet collisions.
Lederer has logged hundreds of hours conducting observing runs at professional observatories worldwide, where she refined both her scientific precision and her ability to repair instruments while working alone on remote mountaintops.
As a private pilot and SciComm (the science equivalent of Capsule Communicator) for NASA’s Desert Research and Technology Studies, she honed her mission communication skills. She was also part of an international team that discovered two extrasolar planetary systems—one with a single Earth-sized planet and another with seven—orbiting ultracool red dwarf stars.
Her expertise has uniquely prepared her to oversee real-time science operations for lunar missions in high-intensity environments.
NASA and Intuitive Machines IM-1 lunar lander mission status press briefing. From left to right: Steve Altemus, Intuitive Machines’ chief executive officer and co-founder; Dr. Joel Kearns, NASA’s deputy associate administrator, Exploration, Science Mission Directorate; Dr. Tim Crain, Intuitive Machines’ chief technology officer and co-founder; and CLPS Project Scientist Susan Lederer. NASA/Robert Markowitz Lederer emphasizes the importance of both scientific discovery and the practical realities of living and working on another world—a challenge NASA is tackling for the first time in history.
“Honestly, it’s when things don’t go as planned that you learn the most,” she said. “I’m looking forward to the surprises that we get to solve together as a team. That’s our greatest strength—the knowledge and teamwork that make this all happen.”
Lederer credits the success of CLPS lunar deliveries to the dedication of teams working on payloads like Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment-1 and Lunar Retroreflector Array, as well as peers within NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Space Technology Mission Directorate, and Intuitive Machines.
“What we do every day in CLPS creates a new world for exploration that is efficient in schedule, cost, and gaining science and technology knowledge in these areas like we’ve never done before,” said Lederer. “It feels very much like being a trailblazer for inspiring future generations of explorers – at least that’s my hope, to keep the next generation inspired and engaged in the wonders of our universe.”
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By NASA
NASA/Sara Lowthian-Hanna The phases of the lunar eclipse are visible in this time-lapse image of the Moon above the Space Environments Complex at NASA’s Neil Armstrong Test Facility in Sandusky, OH on March 14, 2025.
Toward the middle of the Moon’s track through the sky, it appears red – this is the Blood Moon. One meaning of a “Blood Moon” is based on its red glow. This blood moon occurs during a total lunar eclipse. During a total lunar eclipse, Earth lines up between the Moon and the Sun, hiding the Moon from sunlight. When this happens, the only light that reaches the Moon’s surface is from the edges of the Earth’s atmosphere. The air molecules from Earth’s atmosphere scatter out most of the blue light. The remaining light reflects onto the Moon’s surface with a red glow, making the Moon appear red in the night sky.
Image credit: NASA/Sara Lowthian-Hanna
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By USH
On March 26, 2020, a French astronomer Mark Carlotto used a telescope to capture a video showing the moon at night. Dr. M. Carlotto is a specialist in digital video analysis of space objects. The video shows three objects rising above the Moon’s limb, flying across the lunar surface and disappearing in the Moon’s shadow.
The fact that some of these objects are so clearly visible and close enough to the moon to be able to cast noticeable shadows immediately suggests that they are quite large. Using the large Endymion crater as a benchmark, the sizes of the objects were determined.
The size of the object flying over Endymion is about 5 miles long and about 1 to 3 miles wide. The other two objects appear to be comparable in size.
By measuring the displacement of the object it appears that the object is traveling at about 31 mps. It is traveling more than 30 times faster than if it were in lunar orbit.
A paper was recently published that attempts to prove that the original video is a fake. Arxiv.org analyzed the video (not included in the analysis) but extracted and provided three images of the recorded objects for examination, as seen above, and they then conducted calculations to verify its authenticity.
Despite government and space agency denials of UFO existence, photographic evidence and subsequent analysis suggest the presence of large extraterrestrial craft near the Moon and elsewhere in space.View the full article
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By NASA
Intuitive Machines’ IM-2 captured an image March 6, 2025, after landing in a crater from the Moon’s South Pole. The lunar lander is on its side about 820 feet from the intended landing site, Mons Mouton. In the center of the image between the two lander legs is the Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment 1 suite, which shows the drill deployed.Credit: Intuitive Machines Shortly after touching down inside a crater on the Moon, carrying NASA technology and science on its IM-2 mission, Intuitive Machines collected some data for the agency before calling an early end of mission at 12:15 a.m. CST Friday.
As part of the company’s second Moon delivery for NASA under the agency’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative and Artemis campaign, the IM-2 mission included a drill to bring lunar soil to the surface and a mass spectrometer to look for the presence of volatiles, or gases, that could one day help provide fuel or breathable oxygen to future Artemis explorers.
Planned to land at Mons Mouton, IM-2 touched down at approximately 11:30 a.m. March 6, more than 1,300 feet (400 meters) from its intended landing site. Intuitive Machines said images collected later confirmed the lander was on its side, preventing it from fully operating the drill and other instruments before its batteries were depleted.
The IM-2 mission landed closer to the lunar South Pole than any previous lander.
“Our targeted landing site near the lunar South Pole is one of the most scientifically interesting, and geographically challenging locations, on the Moon,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator for science at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Each success and setback are opportunities to learn and grow, and we will use this lesson to propel our efforts to advance science, exploration, and commercial development as we get ready for human exploration of Mars.”
The Nova-C lander, named Athena, captured and transmitted images of the landing site before activating the technology and science instruments. Among the data collected, NASA’s PRIME-1 (Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment 1) suite, which includes the lunar drill known as TRIDENT (The Regolith and Ice Drill for Exploring New Terrain), successfully demonstrated the hardware’s full range of motion in the harsh environment of space. The Mass Spectrometer Observing Lunar Operations (MSOLO) as part of the PRIME-1 suite of instruments, detected elements likely due to the gases emitted from the lander’s propulsion system.
“While this mission didn’t achieve all of its objectives for NASA, the work that went into the payload development is already informing other agency and commercial efforts,” said Clayton Turner, associate administrator for space technology, NASA Headquarters. “As we continue developing new technologies to support exploration of the Moon and Mars, testing technologies in-situ is crucial to informing future missions. The CLPS initiative remains an instrumental method for achieving this.”
Despite the lander’s configuration, Intuitive Machines, which was responsible for launch, delivery, and surface operations under its CLPS contract, was able to complete some instrument checkouts and collect 250 megabytes of data for NASA.
“Empowering American companies to deliver science and tech to the Moon on behalf of NASA both produces scientific results and continues development of a lunar economy,” said Joel Kearns, deputy associate administrator for Exploration in the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters. “While we’re disappointed in the outcome of the IM-2 mission, we remain committed to supporting our commercial vendors as they navigate the very difficult task of landing and operating on the Moon.”
NASA’s Laser Retroreflector Array, a passive instrument meant to provide a reference point on the lunar surface and does not power on, will remain affixed to the top deck of the lander. Although Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C Hopper and Nokia’s 4G/LTE Tipping Point technologies, funded in part by NASA, were only able to complete some objectives, they provided insight into maturing technologies ready for infusion into a commercial space application including some checkouts in flight and on the surface.
Intuitive Machines’ IM-2 mission launched at 6:16 p.m., Feb. 26, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Intuitive Machines has two more deliveries on the books for NASA in the future, with its IM-3 mission slated for 2026, and IM-4 mission in 2027.
To date, five vendors have been awarded a total of 11 lunar deliveries under CLPS and are sending more than 50 instruments to various locations on the Moon, including the Moon’s far side and South Pole region. CLPS contracts are indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contracts with a cumulative maximum contract value of $2.6 billion through 2028.
Learn more about NASA’s CLPS initiative at:
https://www.nasa.gov/clps
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Cheryl Warner / Jasmine Hopkins
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
cheryl.m.warner@nasa.gov / jasmine.s.hopkins@nasa.gov
Natalia Riusech / Nilufar Ramji
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
nataila.s.riusech@nasa.gov / nilufar.ramji@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Mar 07, 2025 LocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms
Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) Artemis Earth's Moon Science & Research Science Mission Directorate Space Technology Mission Directorate View the full article
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