The Blue Ghost Lunar Lander is headed to the moon this month: here’s what to know

Space fans won’t have to wait long for major launches in 2025. NASA is kicking off the new year with a big mission to the moon. The upcoming mission includes the Blue Ghost lunar lander from Firefly Aerospace and the Tenacious lunar lander from Japanese company ispace, part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program.

The Blue Ghost’s main task will be research. The lunar lander will lift off and spend its first 8 hours making sure all its systems are working. From there, it will remain in Earth’s orbit for 25 days to take measurements and wait for the right time to launch to the Moon. After four days of transit, Blue Ghost will spend 16 days in lunar orbit collecting more data before landing Mary CrisiumOne of the largest basins on the Moon.

Once there, it will spend one lunar day — about 14 Earth days — taking measurements 10 NASA payloads. The devices will measure subsurface thermal data, radiation levels and other planetary details. It will also measure regolith, which is the loose dirt and sediment that often settles on airless planetary bodies like the Moon. Regolith research will help mitigate dust on future lunar missions.

At the end of its mission, Blue Ghost will take some photos of the moon setting as night falls. The lander isn’t supposed to return to Earth, so once nightfall falls, the lander will have about 5 hours to perform its final procedures before going offline. Firefly Aerospace says this should be more than enough time to capture images of the sunset and send them back to Earth. Once the internet connection goes down, that’s the end of the Blue Ghost story.

Together with Blue Ghost, NASA will send ispace’s stubborn lunar rover to the surface of the planet. It’s one of the smallest planetary rovers ever designed, and it wouldn’t look out of place anywhere rc car Games store. It is 26 cm (10 in) long and weighs only 5 kg (11 lbs).

Tenacious is part of the second Resilience mission. The first mission took place in 2022 using the similar small Hakuto-R lander.

Launched with the Blue Ghost, Tenacious will then land in the Atlas crater in Mare Frigoris and establish contact with the Hakuto-R lander. This is how the data will return to Earth.

Tenacious will use its equipment to conduct food production experiments, detect radiation, perform water electrolysis, and collect regolith.

When is Blue Ghost and Resilience released?

NASA says The launch is scheduled to take place over a six-day period in mid-January, but exact dates have not yet been confirmed.

When it does launch, it will launch from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. SpaceX will supply the Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket for launch.

Can I stream the launch of Blue Ghost and Resilience?

Yes. A NASA representative told CNET that the launch will be broadcast live. No official announcements have been made yet but stay tuned NASA upcoming events page More details when they are announced. We will update this article when we know more.

What are the mission payloads?

In all, there will be 15 payloads — spacecraft elements dedicated to producing and transmitting mission data — headed to the Moon. Five of them will go with Tenacious and 10 with Blue Ghost.

Blue Ghost Payloads:

• Lunar instruments for rapid subsurface thermal exploration (Leicester) from Honeybee Robotics

• lunar planet (LVP) from Honeybee Robotics

• Next generation lunar reflector (NGLR) from the University of Maryland

• Description of the wealthy person’s commitmentRAC) from Aegis Space Company

• radiation tolerant computerRadPC) from Montana State University

• Electrodynamic dust shield (EDS) from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center

• X-ray imaging of the lunar heliosphere environment (Lexi) from Boston University, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and Johns Hopkins University

• Lunar magnetic probe (Learning management system) from the Southwest Research Institute

• Experimental GNSS Lunar Receiver (Logry) from the Italian Space Agency and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

• Stereo camera for studies of the surface of the moon’s feathers (scalp) from NASA’s Langley Research Center

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