The lunar lander, called Blue Ghost, settled onto the Moon's surface at 2:34 am CST (3:34 am EST; 08:34 UTC). A few dozen engineers in Firefly's mission control room monitored real-time data streaming down from a quarter-million miles away.

The 6.6-foot-tall lander, funded by NASA as part of its Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, is carrying a suite of instruments and experiments for the space agency as NASA prepares to establish a permanent presence on the moon. This includes radiation-tolerant computing tests and sampling of the lunar regolith.

Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost landed on the moon at 2:34 a.m. It’s expected to operate for two weeks, conducting NASA science and technology experiments.