A year ago, NASA's MADCAP team faced a potential collision between Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lander and India's Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft orbiting the moon at 62 miles altitude. The incident highlighted growing challenges as lunar traffic increases, with only 11 spacecraft currently circling Earth's neighbor.

MADCAP, short for Multimission Automated Deepspace Conjunction Assessment Process, functions as space traffic control, tracking spacecraft trajectories around the moon and Mars. The system issues "red alerts" when collision probabilities exceed one in 100,000, prompting discussions between mission teams about orbital adjustments. In 2025, MADCAP handled 11 serious cases requiring intervention.

As more nations and companies target the moon, including NASA's Artemis program and China's lunar ambitions, the need for automated tracking systems grows. Firefly plans to send a second Blue Ghost mission with an orbiting telescope to photograph other spacecraft, potentially offering commercial tracking services. The company may avoid future close calls by selecting non-standard orbital altitudes, recognizing that the current 100-kilometer sweet spot creates predictable collision risks.