Tag: Blue Ghost lander

SpaceX Falcon 9 Launches Two Private Moon Landers at Once

The New York Times reports, “A space twofer took place early Wednesday morning — two lunar missions for the price of one rocket launch. A SpaceX Falcon 9 lifted off from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 1:11 a.m. Eastern time, carrying the Blue Ghost lander built by Firefly Aerospace of Austin, Texas, and the Resilience lander from Ispace of Japan.”
Full Story (The New York Times – Subscription Publication)

Video

SpaceX Falcon 9 Launches Firefly Blue Ghost & HAKUTO-R M2 “Resilience” (Launch at 00:56:42 mark)
(NASASpaceflight; YouTube)

Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Lander Now in Lunar Orbit

Spaceflight Now reports, “A robotic lander from Texas-based Firefly Aerospace is now in orbit around the Moon and going through its final preparations to land in the coming weeks. On Thursday, the company announced that its Blue Ghost lander fired its main engine and thrusters for four minutes and 15 seconds in a maneuver called the Lunar Orbit Insertion, which put it in an elliptical orbit around the Moon.”
Full Story (Spaceflight Now)

Firefly Becomes First Commercial Company to Make a Successful Lunar Landing

Ars Technica reports, “Firefly Aerospace became the first commercial company to make a picture-perfect landing on the Moon early Sunday, touching down on an ancient basaltic plain, named Mare Crisium, to fulfill a $101 million contract with NASA. The lunar lander, called Blue Ghost, settled onto the Moon’s surface at 2:34 am CST (3:34 am EST; 08:34 UTC). A few dozen engineers in Firefly’s mission control room monitored real-time data streaming down from a quarter-million miles away.”
Full Story (Ars Technica)