Firefly Aerospace’s lunar lander, Blue Ghost, is making progress in its journey to the Moon. Early on February 18, the lander fired its engines, an important step on its 45-day mission.
During the engine burn, which lasted just over three minutes, Blue Ghost descended from a high orbit to a lower orbit about 75 miles (120 kilometers) above the Moon’s surface. This new position allowed the lander to snap some impressive photos of the Moon’s far side and send them back to Earth.
This maneuver is crucial for the lander’s upcoming landing attempt on March 2. However, moving to a lower orbit can lead to temporary communication outages between Blue Ghost and its team back in Texas.
The journey also gave the team time to fine-tune the lander’s instruments. If all goes well, Blue Ghost will land in an area called Mare Crisium, known as the Sea of Crises. This basin was formed by an ancient asteroid impact and was once filled with lava. The lander comes equipped with ten different tools to study the Moon’s heat flow, its magnetic and electric fields, and the chemical makeup of the lunar soil. The mission also aims to test new technology for NASA’s Artemis missions, which plan to return humans to the Moon.
Before reaching the Moon, Blue Ghost had a unique journey. Instead of heading straight there, it spent several weeks in orbit around Earth after launching on January 15. During that time, the lander took stunning images of our planet, even capturing a few selfies.
Blue Ghost isn’t the only private lander aiming for the Moon. Recent attempts have seen mixed results. In April 2023, Japan’s ispace had its Hakuto-R M1 lander crash on landing. The first American private attempt, Astrobotic’s Peregrine, faced failure shortly after launching in January 2024. On a better note, shortly after, Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus successfully landed, even though it ended up with a crooked posture on the surface.
If Blue Ghost successfully lands, it will soon have company. ispace has sent another lander, Resilience, to the Moon, hoping for a landing in May or June. Resilience carries the Tenacious rover, which will explore the lunar soil at its landing site.
In addition to these missions, Intuitive Machines is preparing another launch that could happen as early as next week. This mission will feature a robot designed to hop across the lunar surface and explore a permanently shadowed crater.
Source link
blue ghost,Lunar science,the moon
