Context:
Recently, a U.S. company Firefly Aerospace, successfully landed its spacecraft, Blue Ghost Mission 1, on the Moon.
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This marks only the second private mission to achieve the milestone and the first to do so upright.
- In February 2024, Intuitive Machines became the first private company to achieve a soft lunar landing, also the first U.S. landing since the crewed Apollo 17 mission of 1972.
It was confirmed that the spacecraft was “stable and upright”, in contrast to the first private landing in February 2024, where the spacecraft landed sideways.
Blue Ghost Mission 1
- Firefly’s Blue Ghost Mission 1, named Ghost Riders in the Sky, launched on January 15, 2025, and completed its 45 days earth-to-moon transit before soft landing on the moon on March 2.
- The mission comes just over a year after the first-ever commercial lunar landing.
- The mission is designed for stability with shock-absorbing feet, a low centre of mass, and a wide footprint.
- Dimensions: Standing 2 m (6.6 ft) tall and 3.5 m (11.5 ft) wide.
- This mission, part of NASA’s partnership to support the Artemis program, carries ten scientific instruments and aims to capture high-resolution lunar images.
Some key objectives include:
- Heat Flow Analysis: Studying heat escape from the Moon’s interior to understand its thermal evolution.
- Plume-Surface Interactions: Examining how lunar dust reacts to lander engine plumes to improve future landing techniques.
- Magnetic & Electric Fields: Investigating the Moon’s geological history.
- X-Ray Imaging of Earth’s Magnetosphere: Providing new insights into our planet’s magnetic shield.
- Lunar Dust Adhesion: Testing how dust sticks to surfaces, crucial for designing future lunar missions.
- GNSS Feasibility: Evaluating if Earth’s navigation satellite signals can aid lunar positioning.
The mission landed near a volcanic feature called Mons Latreille within Mare Crisium, a large basin located in the northeast quadrant of the Moon’s near side (when observing the Moon from Earth’s northern hemisphere).
- The landing site will allow Firefly’s payload partners to gather critical data about the Moon’s regolith, geophysical characteristics, and the interaction of solar wind and Earth’s magnetic field.
The lander is expected to function for 14 Earth days (one full lunar day), performing scientific experiments and capturing high-definition imagery of the Moon’s surface.
Firefly Aerospace
- Firefly Aerospace, based in Cedar Park, Texas, was formerly known as Firefly Space Systems before it went bankrupt in 2017. After EOS Launcher purchased its assets, the company was renamed Firefly Aerospace.
- It is an American private aerospace firm formed to enable the world to launch, land, and operate in space – anywhere, anytime.
- The company is headquartered in Cedar Park, Texas, USA.
- Firefly is the third private operator to have sent a Moon mission under a special NASA programme called Commercial Lunar Payload Services, or CLPS.
Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS)
- It is aimed at expediting the exploration of the Moon, and building capacities in the private sector to undertake complex space missions.
- This is part of NASA’s larger, and more ambitious, Artemis programme that aims to establish a long-term human presence on the Moon, exploit its natural resources, and use it as a base for further exploration of deep space.