Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost robotic lander has arrived in orbit around the Moon and is making final preparations for landing on the surface. This is reported by Spaceflight Now.
Blue Ghost was launched on January 15 on a Falcon 9 rocket from Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. This is the third mission under the Agency's Commercial Lunar Program (CLPS), which aims to provide more affordable delivery of scientific and technological demonstrations to the Moon.
I love you to the Moon, but not back - I'm staying there," 💙 Blue Ghost. We captured our first shots of the Moon following a successful Lunar Orbit Insertion. The lander will soon begin to circularize its orbit in preparation for landing on March 2. #BGM1 pic.twitter.com/2FclZ1hnvb
— Firefly Aerospace (@Firefly_Space) February 14, 2025
Firefly Aerospace is delivering the largest number of NASA instruments installed on a single CLPS lander to date to Blue Ghost.
Among the 10 cargoes sent by NASA are:
- Lunar Instrumentation for Subsurface Thermal Exploration with Rapidity (LISTER), which will characterize the heat flow from the interior of the Moon.
- Lunar PlanetVac (LPV), which is designed to collect and analyze regolith samples from the lunar surface.
- The Next Generation Lunar Retroreflector (NGLR), which will serve as a target for lasers on Earth to accurately measure the distance between the Earth and the Moon. The retroreflector can also collect data to understand various aspects of the lunar interior and "solve fundamental questions of physics."
- Regolith Adherence Characterization (RAC), which will determine how lunar regolith adheres to a range of materials exposed to the lunar environment during a lunar day.
- Radiation Tolerant Computer (RadPC) is a computer that can recover from malfunctions caused by ionizing radiation.
- Electrodynamic Dust Shield (EDS) is an active dust mitigation technology that uses electric fields to move and prevent the accumulation of hazardous lunar dust on surfaces. This technology is designed to lift, transport and remove particles from surfaces without moving parts.
- Lunar Environment heliospheric X-ray Imager (LEXI), which will be able to take a series of X-ray images to study the interaction between the solar wind and the Earth's magnetic field, which causes geomagnetic disturbances and storms.
- The Lunar Magnetotelluric Sounder (LMS) will characterize the structure and composition of the Moon's mantle by measuring electric and magnetic fields.
- The Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment (LuGRE) will be able to demonstrate the receipt and tracking of signals from the constellations of the global navigation satellite system, including GPS and Galileo, during transit to the Moon.
- The Stereo Camera for Lunar Plume-Surface Studies (SCALPSS) will use stereo image photogrammetry to capture the impact of the rocket plume on lunar regolith as the lander descends to the Moon.
After reaching the lunar orbit, Blue Ghost will perform additional checks and maneuvers to move to a circular orbit over the next 16 days. The lunar landing is scheduled for March 2 at 10:45 a.m. Kyiv time.