A private lunar lander, carrying a drill, vacuum, and various experiments for NASA, successfully touched down on the moon. Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lander, which had been on autopilot, aimed for the slopes of an ancient volcanic dome located in an impact basin on the moon's northeastern edge. Confirmation of the successful landing was received by the company's Mission Control in Texas after it had descended approximately 225,000 miles.
Will Coogan, the chief engineer for the lander, conveyed the news to his team, expressing excitement about the successful touchdown. This achievement made Firefly, a startup founded ten years earlier, the first private company to land a spacecraft on the moon without encountering a crash or topple. Notably, only five nations—Russia, the US, China, India, and Japan—had previously succeeded in this endeavor.
About half an hour post-landing, the Blue Ghost began transmitting images back from the lunar surface, the first being a selfie slightly obscured by sunlight, while the second featured a view of Earth as a small blue dot against the black backdrop of space. Two other companies were reportedly preparing to launch their landers, with one expected to reach the moon just days later.
About Blue Ghost lander
The Blue Ghost lander, named after a rare species of fireflies in the US, had been designed for stability, standing 6-foot-6 tall and measuring 11 feet wide. Launched from Florida in mid-January, it carried ten experiments for NASA, with the agency reportedly paying a significant amount for both the delivery and the scientific payload. This mission marked the third under NASA's commercial lunar delivery program, aimed at fostering a lunar economy through competition among private companies prior to astronaut missions scheduled for the coming decade.
Ray Allensworth, associated with Firefly, stated that the lander had skillfully navigated past hazards such as boulders to achieve a safe landing. While the team continued analyzing the data to determine the lander's precise location, early indications suggested it had landed within the designated target zone in Mare Crisium. The lander's demos were expected to run for two weeks until the lunar daytime concluded, leading to its shutdown.
The Blue Ghost was equipped with a vacuum for collecting lunar soil samples and a drill capable of measuring temperatures up to 10 feet below the surface. Additionally, it had a device designed to counteract the abrasive lunar dust that had posed challenges during NASA's early Apollo missions. On its journey to the moon, the lander transmitted stunning images of Earth and continued to impress once it entered lunar orbit with detailed views of the moon's cratered surface. An onboard receiver also successfully tracked signals from the US GPS and European Galileo constellations, marking a significant advancement for future navigation efforts.
Moon landings by private players
This landing paved the way for a surge of interest in lunar business opportunities. Another lander, a tall and slender 15-footer operated by Houston-based Intuitive Machines, was scheduled to land later that week, targeting a spot near the moon's south pole—closer than where its predecessor had landed the previous year, which had unfortunately tipped over due to a leg failure.
Despite the mishap, Intuitive Machines’ first lander had successfully restored the US presence on the moon for the first time since the Apollo program ended in 1972. A third lander from the Japanese company ispace was still three months away from its scheduled landing, having shared a rocket ride with Blue Ghost earlier in January, taking a longer route due to its trajectory. Like Intuitive Machines, ispace was making a second attempt to land on the moon following a crash of its first lander in 2023.
The moon was becoming cluttered with remnants from numerous failed attempts at landing over the years. NASA expressed its intention to maintain a cadence of two private lunar landings each year, aware that some missions were likely to fail, as shared by the agency's leading science officer, Nicky Fox. She noted that this approach could open new avenues for conducting more scientific research in space and on the moon.
In contrast to the grand Apollo missions funded with substantial budgets and led by experienced astronauts, private companies faced tighter budgets and relied on robotic spacecraft that required autonomous landings, as explained by Firefly's CEO, Jason Kim. He described the mission's execution as seamless, with a lighthearted remark, “We got some moon dust on our boots.”
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Inputs from PTI