17.01.2025
Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 Successfully Launches and Begins 45-Day Transit to the Moon
Following launch vehicle separation, Firefly’s Blue Ghost lunar lander acquired signal and completed on-orbit commissioning
Firefly Aerospace, the leader in end-to-end responsive space services, today announced Firefly’s Blue Ghost lunar lander launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, successfully acquired signal, and completed on-orbit commissioning. With a target landing date of March 2, 2025, Firefly’s 60-day mission is now underway, including approximately 45 days on-orbit and 14 days of lunar surface operations with 10 instruments as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative.
Blue Ghost Mission 1, named Ghost Riders in the Sky, launched from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, at 1:11 a.m. EST on January 15, 2025. Blue Ghost separated from the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in a highly elliptical Earth orbit at 2:17 a.m. EST and established communications with Firefly’s Mission Operations Center in Cedar Park, Texas, at 2:26 a.m. EST. On-orbit spacecraft commissioning was then completed by 5:30 a.m. EST, which included verifying attitude determination and control capabilities, increasing the data transfer rate, establishing a power-positive attitude, and completing initial lander health checks.
“On behalf of Firefly, we want to thank SpaceX for a spot-on deployment in our target orbit,” said Jason Kim, CEO of Firefly Aerospace. “The mission is now in the hands of the unstoppable Firefly team. After all the testing conducted and mission simulations completed, we’re now fully focused on execution as we look to complete our on-orbit operations, softly touch down on the lunar surface, and pave the way for humanity’s return to the Moon.”
Firefly’s Blue Ghost will spend approximately 25 days in Earth orbit, four days in lunar transit, and 16 days in lunar orbit, enabling the team to conduct robust health checks on each subsystem, calibrate the propulsion system in preparation for critical maneuvers, and begin payload science operations. The NASA payloads operating during the Earth-to-Moon transit include LuGRE, which will monitor GPS signals to help extend Global Navigation Satellite System capabilities to the lunar surface, and RadPC, which will begin demonstrating the computer’s ability to withstand space radiation while on-orbit.
Upon landing in Mare Crisium, Blue Ghost will operate 10 NASA payloads for a complete lunar day (about 14 Earth days) and support several science and technology demonstrations, including lunar subsurface drilling, sample collection, X-ray imaging, and dust mitigation. Just before lunar night, Blue Ghost will capture high-definition imagery of a total eclipse from the Moon where the Earth blocks the sun. Blue Ghost will then capture the lunar sunset, providing data on how lunar regolith reacts to solar influences during lunar dusk conditions, before operating several hours into the lunar night.
“Towards the end of Blue Ghost Mission 1, we expect to capture a phenomenon documented by Eugene Cernan on Apollo 17 where he observed a horizon glow as the lunar dust levitated on the surface,” said Kim. “As a tribute to the last Apollo Astronaut to walk on the Moon, we’re honored to have the opportunity to watch this incredible sight in high definition.”
The Ghost Riders in the Sky mission is one of four task orders Firefly has been awarded by NASA CLPS as part of NASA’s Artemis campaign that is working to establish a long-term presence on the Moon and prepare for Mars exploration. Firefly will provide regular mission updates on X and on the Blue Ghost Mission 1 webpage.
About Firefly Aerospace
Firefly Aerospace is an end-to-end responsive space company with launch, lunar, and on-orbit services. Headquartered in central Texas, Firefly is a portfolio company of AE Industrial Partners (“AEI”) focused on delivering rapid, reliable, and affordable space access for government and commercial customers. Firefly’s small- to medium-lift launch vehicles, lunar landers, and orbital vehicles provide the space industry with a single source for missions from low Earth orbit to the surface of the Moon and beyond.
Quelle: Firefly Aerospace
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Update: 26.01.2025
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A private US spacecraft headed to the moon captures a glorious view of Earth
A private U.S. spacecraft has captured stunning images of Earth one week into its flight
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- A private U.S. spacecraft bound for the moon has captured stunning images of Earth one week into its flight.
Still circling Earth, Firefly Aerospace’s lunar lander fired its thrusters Thursday to put it on a path to reach the moon in over a month. Dubbed Blue Ghost, the spacecraft beamed back photos and video of the Blue Marble, our planet. The Texas company released the images Friday.
It carries experiments for NASA, part of the space agency’s effort to return astronauts to the moon this decade.
Blue Ghost is one of two lunar landers launched from Florida by SpaceX on Jan. 15. It's targeting a moon touchdown on March 2. The other lander is sponsored by the Japanese company ispace and taking an even longer route, with a landing in late May or early June.
It's the first moonshot for Firefly and the second for ispace, which crashed its first lander into the moon in 2023. Tokyo-based ispace's latest lander, Resilience, is still orbiting Earth and performing all its maneuvers to close in on the moon.
Quelle: abc News
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Blue Ghost moon lander sees Earth as a 'blue marble' from orbit (photo)
"Our GhostRiders captured the beauty of our home planet during another Earth orbit burn."
Earth as seen from orbit by Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost moon lander in January 2025. (Image credit: Firefly Aerospace)
Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost moon lander caught haunting images of Earth while preparing to make its way towards lunar orbit.
Blue Ghost launched on the "Ghost Riders in the Sky" mission on Jan. 15 atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The lander is currently orbiting Earth, and will continue to do so for about two more weeks before it performs an engine burn that will take it on a four-day journey to the moon. Firefly Aerospace's lander will then perform another burn to insert itself into orbit around the moon, where it will spend 16 days before descending to the lunar surface.
On Friday (Jan. 24), Firefly Aerospace shared photos of Earth taken by the lander as it fired its engines to raise its orbit. "Our GhostRiders captured the beauty of our home planet during another Earth orbit burn. This second engine burn (and first critical burn) adjusted Blue Ghost's apogee (the furthest point from Earth) using just our Spectre RCS thrusters," the company posted to X.
Blue Ghost is flying to the moon as part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. CLPS pairs NASA scientific payloads with privately-built moon landers that can deliver them to the lunar surface. The program was created in support of NASA's Artemis program that aims to land astronauts on the moon for the first time in over 50 years.
When Blue Ghost reaches the lunar surface, it will boot up 10 NASA science experiments that will conduct studies on lunar regolith (moon dust), the radiation environment on the moon, and the interaction between solar wind and Earth's magnetosphere. The lander will also deploy a laser reflector array that will help scientists measure the Earth-moon distance.
Firefly Aerospace released a video earlier this week showing Blue Ghost witnessing Earth eclipsing the sun while in orbit. The company says the lander is in perfect health so far.
Blue Ghost was designed to operate on the surface of the moon for one lunar day, or about two Earth weeks. Then, the sun will set on the moon and the lander's batteries will deplete within a few hours.
Before that happens, the lander will have a few hours of battery life to use its onboard cameras to take images of the lunar sunset and conduct experiments measuring how lunar regolith reacts to dusk and sunset on the moon.
Quelle: SC
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Update: 30.01.2025
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Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lunar lander snaps its 1st photos of the moon (images)
Blue Ghost has its target in its sights.
Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lunar lander snapped this selfie with the moon in the background from Earth orbit. Firefly posted the image on X on Jan. 27, 2025. (Image credit: Firefly Aerospace)
Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost moon lander has snapped its first photos of its distant target.
On Monday (Jan. 27), Texas-based Firefly released two photos of the moon that Blue Ghost captured from Earth orbit. One shows the natural satellite all alone, a small grayish dot in an empty black sea; the other is a selfie, showing the moonglowing above some of Blue Ghost's golden hardware.
"While Blue Ghost is in Earth orbit, we'll continue to keep an eye on our final destination! To the moon!" Firefly said in a Monday X post that shared the two images.
Another shot of the moon by Blue Ghost, which Firefly posted on X on Jan. 27. (Image credit: Firefly Aerospace)
Blue Ghost is Firefly's first-ever moon lander. It launched on Jan. 15 atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, which also carried a second private lunar lander — Resilience, which was built by the Japanese company ispace.
Blue Ghost's mission, which Firefly calls "Ghost Riders in the Sky," is part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, or CLPS. The agency put 10 science experiments aboard the lander, to gather data that will help the Artemis program's push to return astronauts to the lunar surface a few years from now.
Everything seems to be going well for Blue Ghost so far. The lander remains healthy in orbit and has completed two engine burns on schedule, according to Firefly. In about 10 days, the spacecraft will conduct its most important engine firing yet — a translunar injection burn, which will set it on course for the moon.
That trip will take about four Earth days. Blue Ghost will then spend 16 days in lunar orbit, after which it will attempt to land within Mare Crisium ("Sea of Crises"), a large basin on the moon's near side.
The solar-powered Blue Ghost will operate for about two Earth weeks on the lunar surface, shutting down a few hours after the sun sets at its location.
The newly released moon pics aren't the first exciting imagery that Blue Ghost has beamed home. The lander also witnessed a solar eclipse and has captured beautiful "blue marble" views of Earth.
The other moon lander that went up on Jan. 15, ispace's Resilience, also appears to be doing well. Resilience has hit its milestones on schedule so far, according to the company, and is gearing up for a lunar flyby that will take place around Feb. 15.
Resilience is taking a longer, more circuitous route to the moon than Blue Ghost is; the Japanese lander won't reach lunar orbit until about four months after launch. It will attempt a touchdown about two weeks after that.
Resilience is ispace's second lunar lander. The company's first one reached lunar orbit successfully in March 2023 but failed during its landing try a month later.
Quelle: SC
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Update: 3.02.2025
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Private spacecraft gets dramatic view of Earth eclipsing moon
A robotic spacecraft has beamed home crisp videos and snapshots of Earth eclipsing the moon.
Though lunar eclipses generally aren't that unusual — stargazers can watch Earth's shadow obscuring the moon a few times a year — this was different.
Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lander, a private spacecraft hired by NASA to take experiments to the moon, got a rare front-row seat of the spectacle in space. The phenomenon occurred when the blue marble came between the moon and the spacecraft.
Blue Ghost, named after an exotic species of firefly, captured the below footage while flying laps around Earth as it gears up for its first attempt at a lunar touchdown. Almost two weeks ago, the spacecraft witnessed another majestic moment when Earth eclipsed the sun.
"Right now, we are in a period where we're mostly just coasting for the next week-and-a-half or so, until we do our (Trans Lunar Injection) maneuver," said Will Coogan, Blue Ghost's chief engineer, in a video update, referring to the step that puts the lander on a moonbound trajectory. "During that period, we're going to do a bunch of payload operations, continue with system checkouts, just make sure everything is precisely tuned before we do that."
Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lunar lander captures Earth on the horizon from its top deck, with the moon in the distant background. Credit: Firefly Aerospace
Firefly's lander, originally scheduled to lift off in late 2024, is the first NASA Commercial Lunar Payload Services mission of the year. The program has invested $2.6 billion in contracts with vendors from the private sector to help deliver instruments to the moon and send back crucial data.
The company is carrying 10 experiments for the space agency. NASA wants to see a regular cadence of moon missions to prepare for astronaut-led Artemis expeditions in 2027 or later.
Once Blue Ghost escapes Earth's gravitational pull, it will take four days for it to arrive at the moon. The spacecraft will spend 16 days in lunar orbit before dropping to the surface, planned to happen on March 2. The descent is expected to last about one hour.
Watch this time-lapse video of Firefly's Blue Ghost lander capturing Earth eclipsing the moon.
Last week, after flying some 715,000 miles, the team completed test runs on a NASA experiment dubbed SCALPSS, short for Stereo Cameras for Lunar Plume-Surface Studies. It will observe the effects of engine plumes on lunar soil.
"It's been kind of a perpetual grind. We've been working very hard to try and make this dream a reality," Coogan said. "The first images came down, and it forced everybody to pause and realize this thing we've been trying for, for all these years, is finally actually happening, and it's working."
The mission seems to be going smoothly so far, but the team hasn't encountered the hardest part yet. Landing on the moon is onerous. The moon's exosphere provides virtually no drag to slow a spacecraft down as it approaches the ground. Furthermore, there are no GPS systems on the moon to help guide a craft to its landing spot.
So far just one company, Intuitive Machines, has made the journey all the way through lunar touchdown. Its craft landed sideways near the moon's south pole in February 2024, still managing to operate from its awkward position.
Elisha Sauers writes about space for Mashable, taking deep dives into NASA's moon and Mars missions, chatting up astronauts and history-making discoverers, and jetting above the clouds. Through 17 years of reporting, she's covered a variety of topics, including health, business, and government, with a penchant for public records requests. She previously worked for The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, Virginia, and The Capital in Annapolis, Maryland. Her work has earned numerous state awards, including the Virginia Press Association's top honor, Best in Show, and national recognition for narrative storytelling. For each year she has covered space, Sauers has won National Headliner Awards, including first place for her Sex in Space series. Send space tips and story ideas to elisha.sauers@ziffmedia.com or text 443-684-2489. Follow her on X at @elishasauers.
Quelle: Mashable
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Update: 16.02.2025
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NASA Sets Coverage of Firefly’s First Robotic Commercial Moon Landing
With a suite of NASA science and technology on board, Firefly Aerospace is targeting no earlier than 3:45 a.m. EST on Sunday, March 2, to land the Blue Ghost lunar lander on the Moon. Blue Ghost is slated to touch down near Mare Crisium, a plain in the northeast quadrant on the near side of the Moon, as part of NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative and Artemis campaign to establish a long-term lunar presence.
Live coverage of the landing, jointly hosted by NASA and Firefly, will air on NASA+ starting at 2:30 a.m. EST, approximately 75 minutes before touchdown on the Moon’s surface. Learn how to watch NASA content through a variety of platforms, including social media. The broadcast will also stream on Firefly’s YouTube channel. Coverage will include live streaming and blog updates as the descent milestones occur.
Accredited media interested in attending the in-person landing event hosted by Firefly in the Austin, Texas, area may request media credentials through this form by Monday, Feb. 24.
Following the landing, NASA and Firefly will host a news conference to discuss the mission and science opportunities that lie ahead as they begin lunar surface operations. The time of the briefing will be shared after touchdown.
Blue Ghost launched Jan. 15, at 1:11 a.m. EST on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The lander is carrying a suite of 10 NASA scientific investigations and technology demonstrations, which will provide insights into the Moon’s environment and test technologies to support future astronauts landing safely on the lunar surface, as well as Mars.
NASA continues to work with multiple American companies to deliver science and technology to the lunar surface through the agency’s CLPS initiative. This pool of companies may bid on contracts for end-to-end lunar delivery services, including payload integration and operations, launching from Earth, and landing on the surface of the Moon. NASA’s CLPS contracts are indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contracts with a cumulative maximum value of $2.6 billion through 2028. In February 2021, the agency awarded Firefly this delivery of 10 NASA science investigations and technology demonstrations to the Moon using its American-designed and -manufactured lunar lander for approximately $93.3 million (modified to $101.5 million).
Through the Artemis campaign, commercial robotic deliveries will perform science experiments, test technologies, and demonstrate capabilities on and around the Moon to help NASA explore in advance of Artemis Generation astronaut missions to the lunar surface, and ultimately crewed missions to Mars.
Quelle: NASA