Live coverage: International Space Station crew lands in Kazakhstan

The lunar operation marks the longest commercial mission on the Moon to date. Firefly Aerospace is in the midst of preparing for its next trip to the Moon, which is set to launch in 2026.

The update comes after NASA said it and Boeing completed ground hot fire testing of a reaction control system (RCS) to better understand some of the in-flight anomalies seen during the spacecraft’s rendezvous and docking with the International Space Station.

Teams working in Northrop Grumman’s spacecraft factory in Southern California have connected the spacecraft and science modules of the James Webb Space Telescope for the first time, a major milestone as engineers prepare to verify a fix to tears in the observatory’s sunshield, and begin launch vibration and acoustic testing in the coming months.