Texas, USA-based company Firefly’s Blue Ghost lunar lander, part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative, successfully touched down on the Moon’s surface last week.
“Firefly is literally and figuratively over the Moon,” Jason Kim, CEO of Firefly Aerospace said in a statement. “Our Blue Ghost lunar lander now has a permanent home on the lunar surface with 10 NASA payloads.”
Blue Ghost completed a precision landing in Mare Crisium and touched down within its 100m (330ft) landing target next to a volcanic feature called Mons Latreille.
Firefly said Blue Ghost’s shock-absorbing legs stabilized the lander when it touched down and that inertial readings had confirmed that the lander is upright and in a stable configuration. Following touchdown, Firefly is commanding and communicating with the lander from a Mission Operations Center in Texas.
Blue Ghost will now begin its surface operations and support several NASA science and technology demonstrations over the next two weeks. This includes lunar subsurface drilling, sample collection, X-ray imaging, and dust mitigation experiments.
On March 14, Firefly expects to capture high-definition imagery of a total eclipse when the Earth blocks the sun above the Moon’s horizon.
On March 16, Blue Ghost will then capture the lunar sunset, providing data on how lunar dust levitates due to solar influences and creates a lunar horizon glow first documented by Eugene Cernan on Apollo 17. Following the sunset, Blue Ghost will operate several hours into the lunar night and continue to capture imagery that observes how levitating dust behaviour changes after the sunset.
“Just through transit to the Moon, Firefly’s mission has already delivered the most science data to date for the NASA Commercial Lunar Payload Services [CLPS] initiative,” said Shea Ferring, chief technical officer at Firefly Aerospace. “CLPS has played a key role in Firefly’s evolution from a rocket company to a provider of launch, lunar, and on-orbit services from LEO to cislunar and beyond.”
Throughout its 45-day journey to the Moon, Blue Ghost downlinked over 27GB of data, and supported several payload science operations. This included signal tracking from the Global Navigation Satellite System with the LuGRE (Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment) payload, radiation tolerant computing through the Van Allen Belts with the RadPC (Radiation Tolerant Computer) payload, and measurements of magnetic field changes with the LMS (Lunar Magnetotelluric Sounder) payload.
“With annual lunar missions, Firefly is paving the way for a lasting lunar presence that will help unlock access to the rest of the solar system for our nation, our partners, and the world,” said Kim.
