Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Lander closed on the Moon on Saturday, of course, for an automated nail decrease until a Sunday touch at the beginning of Sunday, the first of three lands in the Robotic Moon Landers private sector to reach its goal after launching earlier this year.
The Blue Ghost Lunar Lander spent a month orbiting the Earth after the launch on top of a falcon rocket 9 in JanuaryGiving Firefly flight controllers in Austin, Texas, a long time to activate and test their useful science systems and loads before directing to the Moon.
Firefly Aerospace
Once there, the spacecraft spent 16 days in lunar orbit perfecting its trajectory and a spectacular vision of the Earth from 240,000 miles away.
Now, after multiple disparates of propulsion to reach the planned descent orbit, the 6.6 -feet -high spacecraft is arranged in a drop powered by rockets on the surface. The Touchdown to Mother Crisium (The Sea of the Crisis) is expected at about 3:34 am, near an old volcanic feature called Mons Latreille.
It is expected that landing in solar feeding will work during a full lunar day or 14 days of the Earth. If all goes well, it can continue to work in the power of the battery for a few hours in the dark lunar night before being silent finally.
Firefly’s CEO, Jason Kim, said that Blue Ghost is the latest example of commercial technology provided by the private sector, « actually reducing the cost and accessibility of systems (space). »
« Once in a blue moon a long time ago, this type of lunar land took billions of dollars and countries behind (they) to land on the moon, » he said in a previous interview with CBS News.
« This is a Firefly Aerospace that will put on the moon on cost fractions in a fixed price contract and do so with the most recent commercial technology, » he said. « Like Simone Biles, we attached land to the Olympic Games, we will do the same for the state of Texas, for America and for the world. »
NASA paid Firefly Aerospace $ 101 million to transport 10 agencies sponsored science instruments, built at a cost of $ 44 million, on the Moon as part of the Agency’s Lunar Luminent Commercial Initiative (CLPS).
The CLPS program aims to encourage the private industry to launch useful loads of the Moon Agency to collect science and engineering data needed before Artemis astronauts begin to work on the surface near the Lunar South Pole at the end of the decade.
Firefly Aerospace
« One of these days, we will arrive in terms of the commercial aspects of the moon, » Kim said. « There will be many business plans that will be self -sufficient and increasing. It is an excellent location to try new missions to keep life in space, and it is also a step for Mars. »
Sharing a walk in space with Blue Ghost on board the same Falcon 9 rocket was another Moon Lander, a spacecraft called « Resilience » that was built by Ispace based in Tokyo. The company sent another landing to the Moon last year, but it crashed to the surface after being left without fuel due to a software problem.
For Ispace’s second attempt, the resilience called properly took a long way of low energy on the Moon and is expected to make its landing attempt in May.
Another lander lunar, built by Intuitive Machines based in Houston and known as Athena, launched last Wednesday For another Falcon 9 and it is expected that it will be touched on the Moon on March 6.
Athena was also largely funded by the NASA Clps program, which agreed to pay $ 62.5 million to bring a sophisticated spectrometer and a mass spectrometer to the Moon.
NASA granted Nokia a « investment point » contract of $ 15 million to test cell communications on the Moon and another $ 41 million to intuitive machines for a « hopper » powered by rockets that will jump on a shaded crater permanently in search of ice deposits.
The Firefly Lander carries 10 instruments, including the cameras, a drill for the surface below the spacecraft, a computer that tolerates radiation, a equipment that will try to remove GPS navigation signals, an experiment to learn more about lunar dust management and a to control the dust dispersion that gave the dust by rock engines.
« One of the basic purposes of the Clps with NASA program is to be a precursor of Artemis, who obviously sends humans to the moon, » said Ray Alnsworth, director of Firefly’s programs programs.
« So our useful loads are collecting data, so we can find out what it feels on the lunar surface, to operate on the lunar surface?
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