Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost moon lander just etched its name into the history books. Blue Ghost aced its touchdown try early this morning (March 2), becoming just the second private spacecraft ever to soft-land on the moon. The lander hauled 10 science experiments to the lunar surface for NASA, which was understandably happy with today’s result. The first photos from the probeshowed Earth shining overhead. “We’re on the moon!” Nicky Fox, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, said during the landing webcast. “I’m sorry — I’m just so excited right now.”
“This is an incredibly challenging technical feat to pull off, to land, anything on the surface of the moon,” Joel Kearns, Deputy Associate Administrator for exploration in NASA Science Mission Directorate said during the press conference.
Shortly after landing, Firefly Aerospace unveiled this image from the surface of the moon, it is the first image acquired by the Blue Ghost lunar lander. The images were released by Blue Ghost’s S-band imagery, with higher resolution X-band imagery expected in the next few hours when the lander deploys its main antenna.
Comment: A good news story before we get back into it. There was no live video of the landing. The team decided to use available bandwidth for telemetry… as it should be. Some of the photos sent back from the journey were amazing. The next fourteen days should yield some equally fabulous shots including a video of a total eclipse where the Earth will block out the Sun, an interesting twist.
TTG
It is a major step forward for the space program. We are lucky here in Florida. On the east coast we have the latest in fuel based propulsion and right now on the west coast, we have a race with the oldest forms of propulsion. We also have a contest locally. Musk wants to move his Starship operation to the Cape and there is growing resistance locally. I am sure it will get ugly before it is settled.
Connection to the Starship was lost after the launch in Texas. The booster landed OK, but they have no idea what happened after separation. This will embolden the people who do not want Musk at the Cape.