A new image from Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost mission shows the spacecraft’s first glimpse of the moon. Launched nearly two weeks ago, the spacecraft is headed to the moon where it aims to land, completing just the second commercial lunar landing to date. The lander is filled with experiments and technology tests for NASA, as part of the agency’s Artemis program to get humans back to the moon in the next few years.
In the days since its launch, the spacecraft has been in orbit around Earth. It has gradually adjusted its orbit by firing its engines at various points, and soon it will be able to head toward the moon on a path called a lunar transit.
“NASA’s science and technology instruments aboard Firefly’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 are a step closer to the Moon,” NASA wrote in an update. “After almost two weeks in Earth orbit, Firefly announced Thursday that Blue Ghost successfully completed its second engine burn, placing the lander in the correct position to leave Earth’s orbit and continue its journey to the Moon. At the same time, the spacecraft got its first glimpse of the Moon from Earth’s orbit. ”
This image shows the view of the moon seen from the top of the lander, with the lander’s top deck visible in the foreground. In addition to this image, Firefly also released another image showing just Blue Ghost’s view of the moon:
As the spacecraft travels between Earth and the moon, engineers on the ground are checking that all its payloads are working correctly. The payloads are 10 science and technology experiments, for NASA and various research institutions and universities, including tools like a drill for sample collection and instruments for measuring X-rays and magnetic fields.
“Routine assessments while Blue Ghost is in transit show that all NASA payloads continue to be healthy,” NASA wrote in the update. “Firefly and NASA’s payload teams will continue to perform payload health checkouts and operations before reaching the Moon, including calibrating NASA’s Lunar Environment Heliospheric X-ray Imager (LEXI), continued transit operations of the Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment (LuGRE), and analysis of radiation data collected from the Radiation Tolerant Computer (RadPC) technology demonstration.”
The spacecraft is set to begin heading out of Earth orbit and toward the moon in the next few weeks, and should land on the moon in early March.
