Blue Ghost Lunar Lander is now circumnavigating the moon and taking dazzling photos
NASA’s Blue Ghost Lunar Lander has arrived on the moon and is preparing to land next month, making it orbiting Earth’s closest neighbors. And it’s taking some great photos on that journey.
“After all tests and mission simulations conducted have been completed, we will be fully focused on the execution, aiming to complete orbital operations, softly touch the moon and pave the way for humanity to return to the moon. “Jason Kim, CEO of Blue Ghost Builder Firefly Aerospace; In a recent statement.
The Blue Ghost Lander will separate from the launch vehicle in Earth Orbit on January 15th.
The mission, named the Sky Ghost Rider, was released on January 15th NASA’Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Week 1: Calibration and solar eclipse
Just a few days after its release, Blue Ghost I caught a solar eclipse The Earth passed in front of the sun. The video is shot from the top deck and passes much faster than Earth.
Other than that, things went as planned. Most of the first week was spent proofreading various payloads, ensuring that Lander had a proper connection and was stable before traveling to the moon. Additionally, Blue Ghost performed the initial engine burn and adjusted its orbit to move away from Earth and towards the Moon.
Week 2: Blue Marble and Other Calibration
During the second week of the mission, Blue Ghost performed a second engine burn, adjusting its orbit around the Earth again. That new trajectory allowed Lander to capture truly incredible images, as mentioned above. In this video. Most of the second week was spent adjusting the tracks, continuing to adjust the various payloads. Two weeks later in space, Blue Ghost traveled 715,000 miles and sent over 7 gigabytes of data back to Earth.
I also captured the Blue Ghost That first photo Its final destination – the moon.
Week 3: The most epic selfie ever
The third week was the same, with more preparations being made to move to the moon as the monthly payload was nearing completion. The mundane routine of preparation didn’t stop Lander from seeing some cool stuff. For example, during the preparations, Lander took a selfie of himself, holding the earth in the background. I don’t watch selfies every day, including 8 billion people.
Blue Ghost literally takes a selfie at once with everyone on Earth.
Lander’s camera also filmed another solar eclipse. That was this time Earth passing in front of the moon. It’s not a long video, but we’re pretty used to watching the Earth block the Sun from the Moon, and it’s not that the Earth blocks the Moon from the Sun.
Week 4: Road Trip
Once ready, it’s time for the Blue Ghost to drain itself from Earth’s orbit and head to the moon. Lander took another selfie. This time it’s just before I leave with the Earth and the Moon. According to Firefly Aerospace, the Blue Ghost successfully completed a normal path injection burn to escape Earth’s orbit and officially began moving towards the moon.
Once the trip began, Lander ran dozens of health checks to ensure that all payloads were functional and several trajectory corrections to ensure that they remained on the course. Ta.
The first image of the moon from the Blue Ghost. The moon is here, and on the left is the Antarctic.
Week 5: Hello, Mon
February 13th, Blue Ghost It entered orbit with the moon 4 minutes, 15 seconds later Burning of lunar orbital insertion engine. Firefly Aerospace describes this as the most challenging burn of all time, with more adjustments going on in the coming days to stabilize the trajectory and change from an elliptical orbit to a circular orbit .
When it arrived the lander was taken Lots of photos of our nearest heavenly neighbor. From here, the Blue Ghost spends the next two weeks in lunar orbit, waiting for a chance to land and begin various experiments. The expected landing date is March 2nd.
A tenacious rover is small but powerful
Along with Blue Ghost, NASA launched it Tensile Moon Rover From the Japanese company Ispace. It is one of the smallest planet rovers ever designed, RC car Toy store. It is tenaciously tall and weighs only 5 pounds.
Tenaiss is part of the second resilience mission. The first was held in 2022 at the smaller Hakuto-R Lander as well.
Tenaiss lands at Mare Frigoris’ Atlas Crater and establishes a connection with Hakuto-R. That’s how data returns to Earth.
Tenalias uses its equipment to conduct food production experiments, detect radiation, perform water electrolysis, and collect regoliths.
What is the payload for the mission?
Overall, there are 15 total payloads, which are spacecraft components specialized in the production and relaying of mission data. Five of them are persistent, with 10 going with the Blue Ghost.
Blue Ghost Payload
- The lunar instrumentation for underground thermal exploration with speed (Lister) From Honeybee Robotics
- Lunar Planetvac (LVP) From Honeybee Robotics
- Next-generation lunar retroreflector (NKFR) From the University of Maryland
- Characterization of Regolith Compliance (race) From Aegis Aerospace
- Radiation-resistant computer (radpc) From Montana State University
- Electrodynamic dust shield (eds) From the NASA Kennedy Space Center
- Moon Environment Heliospheric X-ray Imager (Lexi) From Boston University, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Johns Hopkins University
- The Moon Magneto Telluric Sounder (LMS) From the Southwest Research Institute
- Moon GNSS receiver experiment (Rugle) From the Italian Space Agency and the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
- Stereo camera for research on the plum surface of the moon (scalp) From the NASA Langley Research Center
Resilience payload
See this: View SpaceX