After an extensive journey through the vastness of space, a United States aerospace company stands on the verge of conducting a groundbreaking lunar landing, with its spacecraft prepared to potentially become the second privately developed lander to accomplish this feat. Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost Mission 1 is scheduled for a landing attempt no earlier than 3:34 AM Eastern Time (02.04 PM IST) on Sunday, targeting a site in proximity to Mons Latreille, a volcanic structure located within Mare Crisium on the Moon's northeastern near side.
The company announced via social media platform X that "Blue Ghost is ready to take the wheel," highlighting that flight controllers had recently initiated a critical maneuver designed to reduce the spacecraft's orbital altitude. Referred to colloquially as "Ghost Riders in the Sky," this mission emerges shortly after the historical achievement of the first commercial lunar landing and is part of a collaborative initiative with NASA aimed at reducing costs and bolstering the Artemis program, which seeks to return human beings to the Moon.
The golden lander, approximately the dimensions of a hippopotamus, commenced its journey on January 15 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, capturing remarkable imagery of both Earth and the Moon en route. It shared its launch with a lander developed by a Japanese entity, which is slated to attempt its landing in May.
Blue Ghost is outfitted with ten scientific instruments, including a lunar soil analyser, a radiation-tolerant computer, and an experimental setup to assess the viability of employing the existing global satellite navigation system for lunar navigation. Engineered for operation throughout a full lunar day (equivalent to 14 Earth days), Blue Ghost is anticipated to capture high-definition imagery of a total solar eclipse on March 14, during which Earth obstructs the Sun from the Moon's horizon.
Subsequently, on March 16, the spacecraft is expected to document a lunar sunset, providing valuable insights into the mechanics of dust levitation above the lunar surface under solar influence—an effect that produces the enigmatic lunar horizon glow, first observed by Apollo astronaut Eugene Cernan.
In February 2024, Intuitive Machines achieved a significant milestone as the first private entity to conduct a soft lunar landing, which also marked the first U.S. lunar landing since the crewed Apollo 17 mission in 1972. However, this accomplishment was partially overshadowed by a setback: the lander descended at an excessive velocity, resulting in a tipping incident upon impact that hindered its ability to generate sufficient solar energy, thus concluding its mission prematurely.
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