By 
June 18th, 2025
Image credit: Firefly Aerospace
From the folks that brought you the successful Blue Ghost Moon lander, Firefly Aerospace just announced a new lunar imaging service named Ocula.
The intent is to be the first commercial lunar imaging service on the market as early as 2026.
Firefly’s Ocula service will be activated onboard Elytra Dark that is first serving as a transfer vehicle for Blue Ghost Mission 2, set to launch in 2026.
Elytra will then provide a long-haul communications relay and radio frequency calibration services for Blue Ghost and its payloads after the lander touches down on the far side of the Moon.
Following completion of the Blue Ghost mission, Elytra is to remain operational in lunar orbit for more than five years, capturing continuous imagery and autonomously transmitting the data back to Earth.
Image credit: Firefly Aerospace
High-resolution telescopes
The telescope system onboard Elytra is capable of capturing up to 0.2-meter resolution of the lunar surface at an altitude of 50 kilometers, further advancing the capabilities of current U.S. orbiters.
Ocula is enabled by high-resolution telescopes from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) that provide ultraviolet and visible spectrum imaging.
According to Firefly Aerospace, they will operate a constellation of Elytra vehicles in lunar orbit to further enhance the Ocula imaging service and enable faster revisit times.
A second Elytra Dark is scheduled to be deployed to lunar orbit in 2028 as part of Blue Ghost Mission 3 and additional Elytra vehicles will be deployed by 2030
For detailed information, go to:
As well as:
https://fireflyspace.com/ocula
Also, go to: LLNL’s high-resolution telescope system to usher in a new era of lunar exploration at:
Posted in Space News
