Alexander Kaplan, a 2017 Virginia Tech aerospace engineering graduate, experienced something few ever will — a profound personal connection to the moon. Standing outside Firefly Aerospace’s mission control, Kaplan gazed skyward, knowing that a piece of hardware he had built was now on the lunar surface.
“Blue Ghost Mission 1 performed phenomenally on the surface of the moon, which felt fantastic,” he said. “Seeing each of the systems I worked on function — and in some cases even exceed their performance requirements — was incredibly satisfying. Seeing the moon after stepping outside of the mission control room felt surreal, from the fact that a few months earlier, I was standing next to that hardware as it operated in our cleanroom. Now, I can go outside anywhere on Earth, look at the moon, and know that something I built is there.”
Kaplan’s efforts, and those of his Firefly colleagues, resulted in the first successful commercial robotic lunar landing of the commercial space age. Several more are planned over the balance of the decade by commercial firms and others around the globe. Firefly will always be the first successful commerce titleholder.
Firefly Aerospace’s Ghost Riders in the Sky mission, launched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9, carried the Blue Ghost lander and ten scientific instruments to the Moon. This marked the first commercial lunar surface mission under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. The destination was Mare Crisium, a vast lunar basin — an ideal landing site for the spacecraft’s scientific objectives.
Originally from Richmond, Kaplan served as the mechanism lead on the mission. “I was responsible for the multiple moving mechanisms on our lander, including two pointing mechanisms on top of the lander, a surface arm deployable under the lander, and passive radiator covers for thermal control around the perimeter of our vehicle,” he explained. “I spent the last four years designing, building, and testing all these different systems from scratch to support different lander and payload requirements. I also supported integrated lander testing with the components, which included troubleshooting the systems in our cleanroom.”
The hard work paid off. After a 45-day journey, the Blue Ghost touched down softly. The control room erupted in cheers, and over the next 14 Earth days — one full lunar day — the lander exceeded expectations, evoking a wave of emotions in the team.
“After working with the different payloads for this mission, it was great to see them all function after landing and successfully complete their missions,” Kaplan said. “We were able to get fantastic video of them functioning and sent back a huge amount of data, so I am excited to see what their findings are.” The success of the Blue Ghost mission not only validates the capabilities of commercial spaceflight but also paves the way for future missions, both commercial and scientific, to the moon and beyond.
That data — 119 gigabytes — offered groundbreaking insight into lunar science, opening up new frontiers of knowledge. The X-ray telescope LEXI recorded stunning solar activity, while a regolith-sampling arm collected data on lunar dust. The LuGRE payload successfully tracked GPS signals from the moon for the first time, a significant step toward future lunar navigation.
One highlight came near the end of the mission: high-definition footage of a lunar sunset showing levitating dust particles — a phenomenon first suspected during the Apollo 17 mission. For Kaplan and his team, it was a surreal, emotional moment.
Even as the lunar night approached, Firefly’s systems continued operating five hours past sunset, cementing the company’s reputation as a pioneer in commercial spaceflight.
Kaplan’s journey began in robotics clubs and labs at Virginia Tech. Today, he is helping define the next chapter of lunar exploration. Following Blue Ghost’s success, his role at Firefly evolved. He now leads the company’s recovery systems for its upcoming medium-lift launch vehicle, while continuing to develop upgraded mechanisms for Blue Ghost missions 2 and 3.
He believes students today will play a key role in the moon’s future. “As part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, I believe Firefly’s Blue Ghost mission is the start of regular commercial missions to the moon the same way that NASA’s support for commercial launches to the ISS led to regular missions to low Earth orbit,” Kaplan said. “By the time high school and college students graduate, there will be more opportunities to get involved with groups sending technologies to the moon or even creating landers themselves. We can expect a lot of exciting new developments to happen in the years ahead as commercial companies try new things.”
The future Kaplan envisions is already taking shape. Blue Ghost Mission 2, scheduled for 2026, will target the moon’s far side, and Mission 3, planned for 2028, will target the icy south pole. Beyond Firefly, major players like SpaceX, Blue Origin and a growing field of startups are racing to unlock the moon’s resources — helium-3 for fusion energy, rare earth elements for advanced electronics and water ice for life support and rocket fuel. These missions represent the next steps in our exploration of the moon, each one building on the success of the previous mission and pushing the boundaries of what we know about our celestial neighbor.
Kaplan’s name is now among those shaping this new frontier.
As Robert Heinlein once wrote of the Apollo era, “Many short-sighted fools think that going to the Moon was just a stunt. But the astronauts knew the meaning of what they were doing.” Today’s Artemis Generation, embodied by Kaplan and his colleagues, carries forward that legacy — not as a stunt, but as a foundation for the future.
The moon is no longer a distant dream. It is a destination. And for those like Kaplan, it is a place where ambition, curiosity and engineering have met to push the boundaries of what’s possible.
Jack Kennedy is a multidecadal native of Wise County, having been a private attorney, local and state elected official, and now a museum docent at the U.S. Space Force Museum at Cape Canaveral Station, Florida. Contact him at Jack@JackKennedy.net
