- Firefly Aerospace landed its blue ghost ship on the moon on Sunday.
- Moon’s landings were once exclusive to government agencies, but Firefly is now the second company to do it.
- The Blue Ghost mission, funded by NASA, includes experiments to study lunar dust and moon GPS.
The Firefly Aerospace became the second company that ever sat on the moon on Sunday when its blue ghost ship was placed in the gray dust of a lunar plain known as Mare Crisium.
Moon discounts have long been the only field of government space agencies, but no longer.
Blue Ghost is one of a series of trade missions they use in a new era, with companies joining the race on the moon in an effort to build new space tourism industries and mines.
The first image caught on the moon from the Ghost Blue mission. NASA Airspace/Firefly
Although the Blue Ghost mission is funded by NASA and carries 10 loads for the agency, Firefly built the device and encrypted the software that fastened the landing.
“This is such an extraordinary action for Firefly, NASA, our nation and the world, as we pave the way for a sustainable lunar presence,” said a member of the Firefly team in a livestream after they confirmed the landing.
Why do many try and fail to land on the moon
Landing on the moon is a nail bite maneuver, and engineers often describe it as “15 minutes of terror”.
As it falls towards the lunar surface, a moon earth must constantly feel the earth below it, calculate its height, turn to a safe landing place, orient to descend, place its feet, and slow down itself only in time.
One of the last images of Russia’s Luna-25 mission was reinstated on Earth before it collapsed. Center for Functioning of Space in Rroskosmos Land Infrastructure Roses State Space Corporation through AP
There is no time to send commands back and forth, so the space ship must execute this complex series of tasks without the help of the people who built it.
“Just the first time it is completely in itself, making decisions,” Ray Allensworth, director of the Firefly Space Space Program, told Business Insider in the middle of February. “I think many of us will keep our breath, you know, lighting a candle.”
Many have tried and failed. The moon is filled with space boats crashed by India, Russia, an Israeli nonprofit and Japanese company Ispace.
And the US company Astrobotic had to completely give up its landing attempt last January after a valve failure caused a driving in orbit.
An extended view shows the place of the Bersheet clash, a lunar land created by Israeli nonprofit spaceil. NASA State University/GSFC/Arizona
Some elites have landed softly on the moon: Apolo-Era US, Soviet Union, China, Japan, India and the intuitive machinery of the Texas-based company, which landed its ship Odysseus shortly from one piece but in a piece a year ago.
The general director of the intuitive machinery Steve Altemus shows the world how Odysseus’s spaceship landed on the moon: sideways, perhaps relying on a rock or a slope. NASA TV
Now Firefly has joined their famous ranks.
“Even just talking about that type sends a little cold down the spine,” Allansworth said before landing.
What the blue ghost will do on the moon
If all goes well, the firefly’s mission will work for about 14 days of land, which is a full lunar day. The landing site, Mare Crisium, is in the northeast quadrant of the nearby moon side. Relatively relatively without craters and stones, making it a perfect site to study the lunar surface.
Lander board experiments include a drill to investigate only below the lunar surface and a vacuum to absorb lunar dust – both from Jeff Bezos Blue’s spatial enterprise – as well as a demo computer from Montana State University that is created to withstand extreme radiation, and an Italian experiment that is “GPS for the moon”.
At the end of the lunar day, Blue Ghost plans to observe the sunset and study how the sun makes the moon dust levit, a mysterious phenomenon observed by astronaut Apollo Eugene Cernan.
Even before landing, Allansworth said, “I think we have a lot to be proud of. We have returned a substantial amount of data on our loads and from the spaceship.”
All of this data will inform the other mission of the company, which aims to sit on the remote side of the moon in 2026.
“After all, our goal is that we are going to the moon at least every year and hope to increase that cadence over time,” Allansworth said.