Private lunar lander Blue Ghost aces moon touchdown with a special
delivery for NASA
[March 03, 2025]
By MARCIA DUNN
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A private lunar lander carrying a drill,
vacuum and other experiments for NASA touched down on the moon Sunday,
the latest in a string of companies looking to kickstart business on
Earth's celestial neighbor ahead of astronaut missions.
Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander descended from lunar orbit on
autopilot, aiming for the slopes of an ancient volcanic dome in an
impact basin on the moon’s northeastern edge of the near side.
Confirmation of successful touchdown came from the company's Mission
Control outside Austin, Texas, following the action some 225,000 miles
(360,000 kilometers) away.
“You all stuck the landing. We’re on the moon,” Firefly’s Will Coogan,
chief engineer for the lander, reported.
An upright and stable landing makes Firefly — a startup founded a decade
ago — the first private outfit to put a spacecraft on the moon without
crashing or falling over. Even countries have faltered, with only five
claiming success: Russia, the U.S., China, India and Japan.
A half hour after landing, Blue Ghost started to send back pictures from
the surface, the first one a selfie somewhat obscured by the sun's
glare. The second shot included the home planet, a blue dot glimmering
in the blackness of space.
Two other companies’ landers are hot on Blue Ghost’s heels, with the
next one expected to join it on the moon later this week.
Blue Ghost — named after a rare U.S. species of fireflies — had its size
and shape going for it. The squat four-legged lander stands 6-foot-6 (2
meters) tall and 11 feet (3.5 meters) wide, providing extra stability,
according to the company.
Launched in mid-January from Florida, the lander carried 10 experiments
to the moon for NASA. The space agency paid $101 million for the
delivery, plus $44 million for the science and tech on board. It’s the
third mission under NASA’s commercial lunar delivery program, intended
to ignite a lunar economy of competing private businesses while scouting
around before astronauts show up later this decade.
Firefly’s Ray Allensworth said the lander skipped over hazards including
boulders to land safely. Allensworth said the team continued to analyze
the data to figure out the lander's exact position, but all indications
suggest it landed within the 328-foot (100-meter) target zone in Mare
Crisium.
The demos should get two weeks of run time, before lunar daytime ends
and the lander shuts down.
It carried a vacuum to suck up moon dirt for analysis and a drill to
measure temperature as deep as 10 feet (3 meters) below the surface.
Also on board: a device for eliminating abrasive lunar dust — a scourge
for NASA’s long-ago Apollo moonwalkers, who got it caked all over their
spacesuits and equipment.
[to top of second column]
|
Staff at the Mission Control outside Austin, Texas celebrating as
lunar lander Blue Ghost touches down on the moon with a special
delivery for NASA, Sunday, March 2, 2025. (NASA/Firefly Aerospace
via AP)
On its way to the moon, Blue Ghost beamed back exquisite pictures of
the home planet. The lander continued to stun once in orbit around
the moon, with detailed shots of the moon's gray pockmarked surface.
At the same time, an on-board receiver tracked and acquired signals
from the U.S. GPS and European Galileo constellations, an
encouraging step forward in navigation for future explorers.
The landing set the stage for a fresh crush of visitors angling for
a piece of lunar business.
Another lander — a tall and skinny 15-footer (4 meters tall) built
and operated by Houston-based Intuitive Machines — is due to land on
the moon Thursday. It’s aiming for the bottom of the moon, just 100
miles (160 kilometers) from the south pole. That’s closer to the
pole than the company got last year with its first lander, which
broke a leg and tipped over.
Despite the tumble, Intuitive Machines' lander put the U.S. back on
the moon for the first time since NASA astronauts closed out the
Apollo program in 1972.
A third lander from the Japanese company ispace is still three
months from landing. It shared a rocket ride with Blue Ghost from
Cape Canaveral on Jan. 15, taking a longer, windier route. Like
Intuitive Machines, ispace is also attempting to land on the moon
for the second time. Its first lander crashed in 2023.
The moon is littered with wreckage not only from ispace, but dozens
of other failed attempts over the decades.
NASA wants to keep up a pace of two private lunar landers a year,
realizing some missions will fail, said the space agency's top
science officer Nicky Fox.
“It really does open up a whole new way for us to get more science
to space and to the moon," Fox said.
Unlike NASA’s successful Apollo moon landings that had billions of
dollars behind them and ace astronauts at the helm, private
companies operate on a limited budget with robotic craft that must
land on their own, said Firefly CEO Jason Kim.
Kim said everything went like clockwork.
“We got some moon dust on our boots," Kim said.
All contents © copyright 2025 Associated Press. All rights reserved
 |
