Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost moon lander successfully snapped its first images of a distant target—a natural satellite captured from Earth orbit on Monday (Jan. 27). The lander, which launched Jan. 15 atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, features golden hardware and has already completed engine burns as planned.
The two photos show the moon alone in an empty black sea and as a glowing selfie above its hardware. Blue Ghost remains healthy in orbit and will conduct a crucial translunar injection burn later this month to head toward the moon. The trip to the lunar surface, expected in about four Earth days, will take roughly 16 days in orbit before landing within Mare Crisium.
After spending up to two weeks on the moon’s surface, Blue Ghost will power down hours after sunset and return to Earth soon afterward. Meanwhile, Firefly is also monitoring its final destination for Blue Ghost. The lander has successfully completed all milestones so far and is gearing up for a landing attempt around Feb. 15, though it won’t reach lunar orbit until about four months later.
The other moon lander sent up alongside Blue Ghost—isee’s Resilience—is also doing well. Resilience reached lunar orbit on schedule but failed during its first attempt to land in March 2023. It will fly by the moon earlier this month, a key step toward landing later that month.
Blue Ghost is Firefly’s first moon lander and marks the beginning of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. The mission includes carrying experiments to gather lunar data for future plans to return astronauts to the moon in the near future.
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Source: https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft