A private Lunar Lander landed on Sunday with exercises, vacuums and other NASA experiments, the latest in a series of companies looking to launch Earth’s celestial neighbors ahead of astronaut missions.
Firefly Aerospace’s blue ghost lander lander landed from the lunar orbit on Autopilot, aiming to crash the slope of an ancient volcanic dome into the impact basin on the northeastern edge of the moon.
The company’s mission control outside Austin, Texas was confirmed after approximately 225,000 miles (360,000 kilometers).
Mission Control Report says: “We are on the moon.
The smooth, upright landing makes Fireflies (a startup founded ten years ago) the first private outfit to place spacecraft on the moon without crashing or falling. Even the country is staggering, with only five claiming success: Russia, the United States, China, India and Japan.
The other two companies’ landers wore blue ghost heels in hot water, and the next company is expected to join the moon later this week.
The 6-foot-6 (2-meter) high ground launched 10 experiments from mid-January in Florida, bringing the moon to NASA. The space agency paid $101 million for delivery, plus $44 million in science and technology. This is the third mission of NASA’s commercial lunar delivery program, aiming to ignite the lunar economy of competing private enterprises before the emergence of astronauts later this decade.
The demo should have two weeks of running time, and then the lander is closed before the moon’s day ends.
It comes with a vacuum to absorb lunar dirt for analysis and performs a drill bit to measure the temperature depth of 10 feet (3 meters) below the surface. Also on board: a device to remove grinding lunar dust – a scourge on NASA’s long-term Apollo Moon Walker, who covers it on its spacesuits and equipment.
On the way to the moon, the blue ghosts sided with exquisite pictures of their hometown planet. The lander continued to unconscious in orbit around the moon and shot in detail the surface of the gray marks of the moon. Meanwhile, the signals tracked and received from the US GPS and European Galileo constellations is an encouraging step, a navigation for future explorers, and an inspiring step.
The landing site sets the stage for new visitors who are fishing to be in the lunar business.
Another tall and thin 15 feet (4 meters high) built and operated by an intuitive machine based on Houston – landed on the moon Thursday. Its target is the bottom of the moon, just 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the South Pole. It’s closer to the pole than the first lander the company received last year, which is a leg and tilted.
Despite the fall, the intuitive machine’s lander re-landers returned the United States to the moon for the first time since NASA astronauts shut down the Apollo Project in 1972.
The third lander of Japanese company Ispace is still three months away from landing. It shared a rocket trip with Blue Ghost from Cape Canaveral on January 15, taking a longer, windier route. Like intuitive machines, Ispace is also trying to land on the moon for a second time. Its first landers crashed in 2023.
The moon not only emits the wreckage of Ispace, but dozens of other failed attempts over the decades.
Nicky Fox, a senior science officer at the space agency, said NASA hopes to keep pace with two private Lunar Landes each year and realizes that some missions will fail.
Firefly CEO Jason Kim said the successful Apollo moon landed behind them for billions of dollars, with ace astronauts in charge, private companies have limited budgets, and robotic crafts must land on their own.
“Every time we go up, we learn from each other,” King said.
