The Blue Ghost Lunar Lander is now headed to the Moon: here’s what to know

NASA’s Blue Ghost lunar lander is on its way to the moon, flying through space in a small lunar rover called Tenacious.

“After all the tests performed and mission simulations completed, we are now fully focused on execution as we look forward to completing our on-orbit operations, landing softly on the lunar surface, and paving the way for humanity’s return to the moon.” Jason Kim, CEO of Blue Ghost builder Firefly Aerospace, He said In a statement.

The mission, called Ghost Riders in the Sky, launched on Wednesday from NASAKennedy Space Center in Florida at 1:11 a.m. ET. Blue Ghost separated from a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 2:17 a.m. ET and made contact with the Firefly Mission Operations Center in Cedar Park, Texas, at 2:26 a.m. ET.

The Blue Ghost’s main task will be research. I will hang in Earth’s orbit For 25 days to take measurements and wait for the right time to ejaculate herself into 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. Blue Ghost will also measure regolith, 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 night falls, the lander will have about five 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.

The Stubborn Rover is small but mighty

Together with Blue Ghost, NASA launched the spacecraft Moon rover is stubborn From Japanese company ispace, 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 10 inches long and weighs only 5 pounds.

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

Tenacious will land at Atlas Crater in Mare Frigoris and establish contact with Hakuto-R. 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.

What are the mission payloads?

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

Blue Ghost loads

• 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 environment of the heliosphere (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 lunar pole surface studies (scalp) from NASA’s Langley Research Center

Flexibility loads