Blue Ghost Makes “Picture Perfect” Moon Landing

Firefly Aerospace scored their first successful Moon landing early Sunday morning. As their Blue Ghost lander touched down on the lunar surface, it marked a clean-cut victory for the third flight of NASA’s CLPS initiative. The outwardly trouble-free mission sets a high bar for commercial landers this year, as two more spacecraft will soon make the plunge. In the meantime, Firefly and Blue Ghost have 14 days of lunar science ahead of them as they celebrate their achievement.

Blue Ghost’s landing concludes a six-week journey through space, which began on January 19th with an unusual launch that saw the spacecraft stacked atop ispace’s HAKUTO-R. Once the two landers parted ways, Blue Ghost spent the time raising its trajectory to meet the moon before navigating down into lunar orbit. Descent orbit insertion occurred shortly before 2 AM Central Time on March 2nd, allowing the spacecraft to coast down to about 18 kilometers above the Moon. Powered descent began 30 minutes later, about 11 minutes before landing.

During its descent, callouts indicated that Blue Ghost’s navigation retargeted its landing site as its guidance adjusted to the lunar terrain: once by 98 meters, and then by another 5 during terminal guidance. With the main engine shut off, the final 90 seconds of descent was performed by the lander’s eight secondary thrusters. Three of the four footpads detected a touchdown in Mare Crisium at 2:35 AM Central Time. Initial data confirmed Blue Ghost’s stable, upright orientation, steady power charging from its solar panels, and the first fully successful landing under the CLPS initiative.

In Firefly Aerospace’s hometown of Cedar Park, Texas, crowds of “Fireflies” celebrated their accomplishment alongside friends, family members, and NASA leadership. Speaking at the event, Drs. Nicola Fox and Joel Kearns congratulated employees and reaffirmed the significance of NASA science aboard Blue Ghost Mission One. Chris Culbert, manager of the CLPS initiative, called the “picture-perfect” landing a clear sign that the program is working. Firefly’s CEO, Jason Kim, expressed his hope that the landing would inspire a new generation, lauding the diversity of people “from all walks of life” that worked together to enable this mission.

Like all CLPS landers, Blue Ghost Mission One carries a host of payloads key to NASA’s exploration of the Moon. One key experiment which may already have operated is SCALPSS, a set of cameras to study the way rocket plumes disturb the lunar surface during landing. While the same experiment flew on Intuitive Machine’s IM-1 lander Odysseus last year, it failed to collect data during that mission’s perilous landing. SCALPSS data is critical to inform safe design and operations for future landers, especially large ones like the Starship HLS.

Two other important experiments are Regolith Adherence Characterization (RAC) and the Electrodynamic Dust Shield (EDS), both of which aim to demystify the Moon’s clinging, hazardous dust. This “regolith” threatens to work its way into delicate space systems and contaminate human living spaces, so its study is a top priority for NASA. RAC will study regolith buildup on different materials over time, while EDS will demonstrate using electric fields to repel the dust. Also handling regolith is Lunar PlanetVac, which will test a compressed-gas system for harvesting surface material to inform future resource utilization.

Another technology demonstration which could revolutionize lunar exploration is LuGRE, which will attempt to detect signals from the GPS and Galileo satellite constellations throughout the mission. If successful, future spacecraft could utilize these networks for precise navigation in cislunar space, far beyond their originally intended envelope. This would be a boon to a future in which many spacecraft, some carrying humans, must simultaneously maintain situational awareness as they operate on and around the Moon.

Other instruments will investigate the lunar environment, including the LISTER heat-sensing drill, the LMS electromagnetic field probe, and LEXI, an X-ray imager. The next-generation retroreflector (NGLR) will provide measurements of the Moon’s movement relative to the Earth, while RadPC will demonstrate new methods for radiation-tolerant computing for spacecraft applications. More information on each payload can be found in the mission’s press kit.

Over the next 14 days, the Firefly team will work with payload operators to collect valuable information about the Moon. Highlights may include observation of a solar eclipse caused by the Earth—which appears as a lunar eclipse to people on the Earth—and a search for levitating dust seen by Apollo astronauts at sunset. While the lunar night will end Blue Ghost’s first mission, the company has two more on the books for NASA, including the introduction of Firefly’s Elytra spacecraft for additional services at the Moon.

At the time of writing, the CLPS initiative seems to exhibit an incremental trend towards success. Its first flight failed long before reaching the Moon; its second narrowly avoided complete disaster. With Blue Ghost Mission One, a program which Space Scout has been critical of in the past could at last be finding its stride. While the Firefly team settles in for the long lunar day, the pressure is on for IM-2 and Athena to match their accomplishment before the week is out.

Edited by Nik Alexander