By 
August 26th, 2024
Image credit: Firefly Aerospace/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Out the door – from Cedar Park, Texas and headed for the Moon.
That’s the Firefly Aerospace Blue Ghost Moon lander – as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative.
Image credit: Firefly Aerospace
The lunar lander has arrived at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) for environmental testing before the lander ships to Cape Canaveral for a Q4 2024 launch.
Blue Ghost 1 is to tote 10 scientific instruments and technology demonstrations.
Following final testing, Firefly’s Blue Ghost will ship to Cape Canaveral, Florida, ahead of its launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2024.
Image credit: Firefly Aerospace
Long haul
Once off the ground, Blue Ghost will begin its transit to the Moon, including roughly a month in Earth orbit and two weeks in lunar orbit.
The spacecraft will then attempt a landing in Mare Crisium, a basin in the northeast quadrant on the Moon’s near side, before deploying and operating 10 instruments for a lunar day (14 Earth days) and more than 5 hours into the lunar night.
Image credit: Firefly Aerospace
Lunar dusk looksee
Risa Schnautz, director of the firm’s marketing and communications, told Inside Outer Space: “Firefly will operate Blue Ghost for at least 5 hours into the lunar night in order to capture the lunar sunset and gather data about how the sun effects lunar regolith during lunar dusk conditions. After the lunar sunset, Firefly will continue to operate Blue Ghost into the lunar night as long as our stored battery power will allow us.”
Blue Ghost-1 experiments. Image credit: Firefly Aerospace
For more details on Blue Ghost Mission 1 named Ghost Riders in the Sky, go to:
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