Ray Allensworth

Ray Allensworth
Allensworth hosting SpaceX livestream of launch event for Blue Ghost Mission 1 Lunar Landing
Born1993 (age 32–33)
EducationUniversity of Texas at Austin (BS)
Occupations
  • Business executive
  • Engineer
OrganizationVice President of Spacecraft at Firefly Aerospace
AwardsTime 100 Next 2025

Ray Allensworth is an American business executive and engineer who has served as the Vice President of Spacecraft at Firefly Aerospace since 2026. She previously served as the company's Spacecraft Program Director, where she worked on Blue Ghost Mission 1 in 2025. This mission was the first time a private company successfully landed a spacecraft on the moon. She was selected as a Time 100 Next that same year.

Biography

Allensworth earned her bachelor's degree from the University of Texas at Austin, where she studied civil engineering. She then went on to work at Northrop Grumman and Raytheon.

She moved back to Texas and took a job as a deputy program manager at Firefly Aerospace, working on the project that was then called 19D but since became known as Blue Ghost Mission 1, a mission focused on gathering lunar data. She later became program manager for that same mission, before becoming Spacecraft Program Director for Firefly Aerospace by 2025.

As Spacecraft Program Director, her focus was still on Mission 1. The mission made history on March 2, 2025, when Blue Ghost Mission 1 became the first private spacecraft to successfully land on the moon. As Spacecraft Program Manager, she also became one of the media contacts. Since then, she focused on Blue Ghost Mission 2. Her stated goal is to shorten the time between launches until they reach a roughly annual cycle.

She was made one of the Time 100 Next in 2025: her profile was written by Jeffrey Kluger. She was also named one of the Via Satellite Rising Stars that same year.

On May 6, 2026, she was promoted to the role of Vice President of Aerospace.

References

  1. ↑ "SXSW 2025 Schedule | Contributors". SXSW 2026 Schedule. Retrieved May 16, 2026.
  2. ↑ "The Blue Ghost, with Ray Allensworth (Firefly)". Apple Podcasts. Retrieved May 16, 2026.
  3. ↑ "Aerospace company plans to launch lunar lander by end of year". Williamson County Sun. November 18, 2024. Archived from the original on July 24, 2025. Retrieved May 16, 2026.
  4. 1 2 Staff, Payload (June 12, 2024). "An Interview with Ray Allensworth". Payload. Retrieved May 16, 2026.
  5. ↑ Martorano, Vincent (March 4, 2025). "Experts say Firefly's Moon landing is the first step to putting humans on the moon". KEYE. Retrieved May 16, 2026.
  6. ↑ "Company". Firefly Aerospace. Retrieved May 31, 2026.
  7. ↑ "We're proud to announce the promotion of Ray Allensworth to Vice President of Spacecraft. As Spacecraft Program Director, Ray led Blue Ghost Mission 1—the first successful commercial lunar… | Firefly Aerospace | 51 comments". LinkedIn. Retrieved May 31, 2026.
  8. 1 2 "Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost Mission 1 concludes successful, 14-day mission on the Moon – Spaceflight Now". Spaceflight Now. Retrieved May 16, 2026.
  9. ↑ Feldscher, Jacqueline (June 11, 2024). "The Blue Ghost, with Ray Allensworth (Firefly)". Payload. Retrieved June 28, 2026.
  10. ↑ "First private spacecraft successfully lands on the moon". abc10.com. March 2, 2025. Retrieved May 16, 2026.
  11. ↑ Hernandez, Joe (March 3, 2025). "Private company's Blue Ghost spacecraft makes historic lunar landing". WWNO. Retrieved May 16, 2026.
  12. ↑ GonzalezMontero, Valeria (March 4, 2025). Private company successfully lands probe on the moon | CNN. Retrieved May 16, 2026 – via www.cnn.com.
  13. ↑ "Firefly Aerospace's "Blue Ghost" prepares to land on the moon". Yahoo News. March 1, 2025. Retrieved May 16, 2026.
  14. ↑ "Firefly Aerospace Prepares for Blue Ghost Mission 2 Following Historic Lunar Success – SatNews". satnews.com. Retrieved May 16, 2026.
  15. ↑ Kluger, Jeffrey. "Ray Allensworth Is on the 2025 TIME100 Next". TIME. Archived from the original on November 19, 2025. Retrieved May 16, 2026.
  16. ↑ "Via Satellite Rising Stars of 2025 | August 2025". interactive.satellitetoday.com. Retrieved May 16, 2026.
  17. ↑ "Firefly - We're proud to announce the promotion of Ray Allensworth to Vice President of Spacecraft. As Spacecraft Program Director, Ray led Blue Ghost Mission 1—the first successful commercial lunar landing—and helped secure five NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration task orders and four CLPS missions. Now, she'll lead the next phase of growth, strengthening our Blue Ghost and Elytra spacecraft production lines as we scale to support our customer's national security and space exploration missions while preparing for NASA's lunar Moon Base initiatives. Congratulations, Ray—well deserved. | Facebook". www.facebook.com. Retrieved May 16, 2026.