The Moon —
On Sunday, a company called Firefly Aerospace became the first private company to make a perfect landing on the moon. Firefly is working with NASA, and its spacecraft, Blue Ghost, is carrying out several experiments for the space agency.
Many efforts at landing on the moon have ended in failure. So far, only the US, Russia, China, India, and Japan have successfully landed spacecraft on the moon. Most of those countries failed in their first attempts.
And those were countries, not private companies. Last year, a lander from a private company called Intuitive Machines, landed safely on the moon’s surface, but then fell over.
(Source: Firefly Aerospace, via Flickr.com.)
Blue Ghost is named after a special kind of firefly. The lander was launched into space roughly 45 days ago, on January 15.
Early Sunday morning, the lander fired its engine to begin its journey down to the moon’s surface.
The spacecraft was hidden behind the moon at this point, and had to manage the operation on its own, with no help from Earth. When it came back into view roughly 20 minutes later, everything was still going well.
But the spacecraft was still moving at around 3,800 mph (6,115 kph), so it fired its engine again, to slow down. At 3:34 a.m. New York time, the lander gently touched the lunar surface. Will Coogan, Blue Ghost’s lead engineer, announced, “We’re on the moon!”
(Source: Firefly Aerospace .)
Blue Ghost is about 6.5 feet (2 meters) tall, and 11 feet (3.5 meters) wide. Its size and shape helped it land safely. About 30 minutes after it landed, Blue Ghost sent back its first pictures from the moon’s surface.
The lander is carrying out 10 science experiments for NASA. It will be able to drill as deep as 10 feet (3 meters) into the moon to record the temperature.
Other experiments are aimed at learning more about how to control the moon’s dust, which has caused problems for NASA’s moon missions in the past. NASA hopes to send astronauts back to the moon before 2030 as part of its Artemis program.
(Source: Firefly Aerospace, via Flickr.com.)
The experiments will run for about 14 days. After that, it will be too cold on the moon for the electronics on the lander to work.
Blue Ghost is one of several landers built by private companies, but hired by NASA. NASA’s CLPS* program was designed to encourage private companies to develop the technology needed to land supplies and run experiments on the moon cheaply and safely.
The Blue Ghost mission cost NASA about $145 million ($101 million for the lander and $44 million for the experiments). That’s a lot of money, but it’s cheap compared to how much it might have cost NASA to run a similar mission. One expert says that could have cost as much as $500 million.
NASA has 13 private companies to choose from under its CLPS program. Most of the companies that have been chosen are new, smaller companies like Firefly.
One of these companies is Intuitive Machines. Its new lander is expected to touch down on the moon later this week.
Did You Know…?
Blue Ghost is also helping NASA understand how signals from GPS satellites can be used to help moon missions find their way. The mission also hopes to capture high quality images of the lunar eclipse that will happen on March 13/14.
* CLPS stands for Commercial Lunar Payload Services.