The Firefly Blue Ghost spacecraft began its journey to the Moon a little over a week ago, and the mission has already managed to transmit stellar images from space. In addition to checking off a list of important milestones, Blue Ghost also took a classic photo of the Earth and captured a brief moment of darkness when the Earth eclipsed the Sun.
Blue Ghost launched on Wednesday, January 15, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket heading from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to the Moon. The mission, called “Ghost Riders in the Sky,” will spend 45 days in space before attempting a soft landing on the lunar surface.
Shortly after launch, Blue Ghost took its first image from space. The image shows the upper deck of the lander with the X-band antenna and NASA’s LEXI payload visible under a bright flash of sunlight.
Six Blue Ghost vehicles are already sending initial data to Earth, and one vehicle, LuGRE, has begun its scientific research, Firefly Aerospace said in a statement. “Developed by the Italian Space Agency, LuGRE monitors signals from GPS and Galileo satellites during our flight from Earth to the Moon to test the reception and use of signals along the way,” the company wrote.
Blue Ghost will stay in Earth orbit for 25 days, after which its engine will burn out to put it on a trajectory to the moon. Blue Ghost will spend four days on its way to the Moon and another 16 days orbiting the Earth’s satellite before attempting to land on its dusty surface.
Upon reaching the Moon, Blue Ghost will target Mare Crisium, the site of an ancient asteroid impact that was once filled with basalt lava. According to NASA, the basalts on Mare Crisium are between 2.5 and 3.3 billion years old. The lunar lander is equipped with 10 scientific instruments to study the lunar surface and collect data to support future human missions to the Moon as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative.
There is a lot of work to be done on the Moon this year, as more commercial flights are scheduled for this year, including ispace’s Resilience lander, which launched to the Moon with Blue Ghost but will reach the lunar surface in a few months.
