Firefly Aerospace’s lunar lander launched successfully, aiming for a March moon landing with NASA’s support and SpaceX’s rocket.
This mission, called Blue Ghost Mission 1, is set to land on the moon in March. The Blue Ghost will hang out in orbit for 45 days and then spend 14 days on the moon’s surface.
It’s carrying 10 science and tech instruments as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. This program lets companies send experiments to the moon, helping NASA prep for future human missions. Some cool stuff it’ll do includes drilling, collecting samples, taking X-ray images, and figuring out how to deal with moon dust.
Plus, Blue Ghost will snap some epic photos of a total eclipse when the Earth blocks the sun from the moon and catch a lunar sunset. The last time someone saw that was during the Apollo 17 mission!
This mission is just one of four that Firefly is working on under NASA’s initiative, which is part of the bigger Artemis campaign to set up a long-term base on the moon and eventually explore Mars. The lunar landing is scheduled for March 2.
