After launching aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Kennedy House Heart in Florida on January 15, Firefly Aerospace’s moon-bound Blue Ghost spacecraft has been orbiting Earth forward of a trans-lunar injection maneuver in slightly below every week’s time.
From its present location method above Earth, it’s been beaming again some unimaginable footage during the last couple of weeks, together with this clip of our personal planet shared on social media on Monday.
T-5 days till Blue Ghost says goodbye to Earth! With the accuracy we achieved on our first two burns, we have been capable of skip the third Earth orbit maneuver. Blue Ghost is already in a very good place to carry out our trans-lunar injection in slightly below every week. Our #GhostRiders… pic.twitter.com/lMHpr8ix14
— Firefly Aerospace (@Firefly_Space) February 3, 2025
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As you may see from Firefly’s publish, Blue Ghost is gearing as much as proceed its journey to the moon, the place it’s going to stay in a lunar orbit for 16 days earlier than trying a touchdown on March 2. The whole mission is anticipated to final near 60 days, together with about 45 days touring time, and 14 days of operations on the lunar floor.
Firefly’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 part of NASA’s Business Lunar Payload Companies program, and goals to ship 10 scientific investigations and know-how demonstrations to help future human exploration of the moon underneath the Artemis program.
The Blue Ghost lander, which is about 2 meters tall and three.5 meters large, will contact down close to a volcanic function referred to as Mons Latreille inside Mare Crisium, a 500-kilometer-wide basin on the moon’s close to facet, delivering 94 kilograms (207 kilos) of payloads to the lunar floor.
Scientific aims embody evaluation of lunar regolith properties, investigation of the interactions between photo voltaic wind and Earth’s magnetic area, the analysis of long-distance World Navigation Satellite tv for pc System capabilities, and evaluation of radiation-tolerant computing, amongst different actions.
“This mission embodies the daring spirit of NASA’s Artemis marketing campaign — a marketing campaign pushed by scientific exploration and discovery,” NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy mentioned when Blue Ghost left Earth final month. “Every flight we’re part of is a crucial step within the bigger blueprint to determine a accountable, sustained human presence on the moon, Mars, and past. Every scientific instrument and know-how demonstration brings us nearer to realizing our imaginative and prescient.”
Reaching the moon is not any straightforward feat, with America’s Peregrine lunar lander struggling a catastrophic glitch on its method there in a mission final 12 months, and Japan’s HAKUTO-R Mission 1 failing within the ultimate moments earlier than landing.
That is Firefly’s first try and land on the moon. Fingers crossed that it nails it.
