Tag: firefly

Watch live with NASA as Firefly Aerospace prepares to land their Blue Ghost craft on the Moon for the first time.

Firefly’s Blue Ghost lunar lander is slated to touch down near Mare Crisium, on the near side of the Moon, no earlier than 3:45 a.m. EST (0845 UTC) on Sunday, March 2. Live coverage, jointly hosted by NASA and Firefly, begins at 2:20 a.m. EST (0720 UTC).

Blue Ghost Mission 1 is part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, which is sending science and technology to the lunar surface in preparation for NASA’s Artemis campaign, which will establish a long-term presence at the Moon. Blue Ghost is sending10 experiments and demonstrations to provide insights into the Moon’s environment and support future astronauts on the Moon and Mars.

More info: https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-sets-coverage-of-fireflys-first-robotic-commercial-moon-landing/

Credit: NASA

Watch Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lunar lander lift off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. SpaceX and Firefly Aerospace are targeting 1:11 a.m. EST (0611 UTC) Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025, for launch. The lander will carry 10 NASA science investigations to the Moon’s surface.

Following launch, the lander will spend approximately 45 days in transit to the Moon before landing on the lunar surface in early March 2025. The 10 NASA payloads aboard the lander aim to test and demonstrate lunar subsurface drilling technology, regolith sample collection capabilities, global navigation satellite system abilities, radiation tolerant computing, and lunar dust mitigation methods.

The results of these investigations could help further our understanding of the Moon’s environment and help prepare for future human missions to the lunar surface as part of the agency’s Moon to Mars exploration approach.

For more information about our Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/commercial-lunar-payload-services/

Credit: NASA

#NASA #Moon #Artemis