Private spacecraft successfully lands on the Moon

A spacecraft that has successfully landed on the Moon has made history as only the second privately made vehicle to reach the lunar surface.

The spacecraft, named Blue Ghost, was launched on 15 January by a company called Firefly Aerospace.

Its mission is to explore the Sea of Crises, a large crater on the Moon that we can see from the ground here on Earth.

The mission is part of a collaboration with Nasa, the U.S. space agency, which is increasingly working with private companies in an effort to keep costs down.

Blue Ghost's mission is to explore the Sea of Crises (circled), a large crater on the Moon that we can see from the ground here on Earth

Blue Ghost touched down smoothly after travelling around the Moon in orbit for the last two weeks.

Realising that the craft had landed successfully, the Firefly Aerospace team in Texas cheered, celebrating their achievement.

Before Blue Ghost, a company called Intuitive Machines had tried to land a spacecraft on the Moon, but their first attempt didn't go as planned.

Their craft, called Odysseus, made it to the Moon but landed in a tricky spot on the slope of a crater, broke some landing gear, and fell over.

Intuitive Machines, another firm, is hoping to land its Athena spacecraft near the Moon's south pole in the next few days.

Speaking to the BBC, Dr Simeon Barber, a planetary science researcher from the Open University, said Blue Ghost had achieved something not seen since the 1970s.

"[They've] demonstrated a technology for landing on the surface of the Moon, the kind that had been forgotten after the Apollo era when we had astronauts on the [lunar] surface."

The last time humans set foot on the Moon was 19 December 1972, during the Apollo 17 mission.

Blue Ghost is the latest collaboration between Nasa and private companies who want to explore space

The importance of the Moon to many private firms, said Dr Barber, was to use it as the start of efforts to go further and explore other parts of space.

"By going to the Moon, we can learn how to run robotic instruments in space [and] in the really harsh environment of the Moon, which is at times hot and at times cold. It's very dusty, there's lots of radiation."

When will astronauts go back to the Moon?

The last time people stepped foot on the Moon was in 1972. Here astronaut Eugene Cernan sits on a lunar rover vehicle during Nasa's Apollo 17 mission.

Nasa plans to send astronauts to the lunar surface again by the end of this decade.

The next step of the mission, called Artemis II, is scheduled to take place no earlier than April 2026, when four astronauts will perform a flyby of the Moon and return to Earth.

Artemis III is then planned to be their first crewed Moon landing mission since 1972, which Nasa expects to launch no earlier than mid-2027.

China is also planning for a crewed lunar landing mission by the year 2030.