The Blue Ghost Lander sits on the surface of the moon in the concept of this artist. Credit: Firefly Aerospace
Near the eastern limb of the moon there is the Cavalla crisis – the sea of crisis – a simple simple basalt incorporated by rough mountains. Spened by a colossal impact about 3.9 billion years ago, the 460 miles wide mare (740 kilometers) appears largely flat and without characters. But the persistent whispers of a volcanic past are everywhere, from its omnipresent darkness to flooded and semi-rumolized craters by ancient basalt-and a curious and lonely point of reference near its center: the Mons Latreille, four miles off (6 , 4 km).
Soon, a robotic profession called Blue Ghost Will lands here, transporting 10 scientific tools and technological tests such as part of NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) program. Also known as Blue Ghost Mission 1 and nicknamed Ghost Riders in the Sky, the Lander is targeting a six -day launch window in mid -January. NASA announced on January 7 that the first programmed launch opportunity is 1: 11 East of Wednesday 15 January.
An active past
Mare Crisio is testimony to an active past: long and sinuous ridges that melted through its oriental hinterland, spectral shadows of ancient craters and the spit Cappelike of the Agarum promontory that bordered its south -eastern edge. Wide of the State of Arizona, the Cavalla boasts a earth’s surface of 68,000 square miles (176,000 square km) – on par with Oklahoma.
Six decades ago, even if Russia has lost its space of space with the United States when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin triumphantly walked at the base of tranquility in July 1969, the Soviets entertained a end of Lunar champion on earth.
While Armstrong and Aldrin slept in the hours following their historian Moonwalk, the Luna 15 robotic probe in Russia attempted to land in crisis, 344 miles (554 km) in the north -est of their landing site. But he hit a mountain during the descent and was destroyed.
Another attempt in 1974 saw Luna 23 land too quickly and overturn. But in 1976, Luna 24 returned safely 0.37 pounds (170 grams) of crisis soil to the anxious hands of Russian scientists. Those samples suggested an unhingely way in the presence of water by 0.1 percent in mass.
In 2018, NASA began to hire private companies to send small robotic and rover landists to the moon through its CLPS program. One of those companies is Firefly Aerospace. Based in Cedar Park, Texas, was founded in 2017 and began to fly its Alfa orbital rockets in 2021. He is also building the first phase of the new Northrop Groumman Booster Antares 330.
Firefly won his first CLP contract in February 2021: a task of $ 93.3 million to land on the moon with Blue Ghost, a four -legged profession that takes its name from the rare Reticulated phausis Firefly, whose disturbing and bluish glow is originally from the Eastern United States
Loft in orbit by the Falcon 9 rocket of Spacex, Blue Ghost will be the first mission of the United States to Crisio. Standing 6.6 feet (2 meters) in height and 11.5 feet (3.5 m) in width, the Lander Blue Ghost can carry about 330 pounds (150 kg) of payload on the moon. An X band and three band antennas SUCCE and HD communications and videos. And the solar panels mounted on the body will offer 300 watts of power for missions up to 60 days.
The Lander approved his critical revision of the design in October 2021 and the integration of the revision of readiness in April 2022. The assembly was complete by October 2023, when the launch of the mission had slipped a year, at the end of 2024 According to NASA, the current mission launch window opened no earlier than half of this month and will last six days.
Journey to the moon
Once launched, Lander’s journey on the Moon will take several weeks, giving Firefly the time to validate Blue Ghost’s health and collect data.
After 25 days in the ground circle, he will head to the moon and enter the lunar orbit for another 16 days of testing. So, on day 45 it will mark the most difficult feat of the mission: a pungent descent from its 60 mile orbit (100 km) on the surface.
About an hour before the landing, the main engine of 1,000 Newton by Blue Ghost will turn on. The Lander will therefore be constant for 50 minutes while its navigation system relating to the ground calculates the altitude, the descent speed and selects a suitable landing point. Twelve miles (20 km) above the surface, it will launch, slowing down from 3,800 mph (6,100 km/h) to 90 mph (145 km/h) to position itself on the selected touchdown area. The main engine goes off at an altitude of 500 feet (1,600 m) while the control quilts of the Blue Ghost reaction periodically cleans to perfect the descent.
That descent was meticulously practiced on earth. Firefly performed dozens of fall tests on various surfaces (such as sand, simulated lunar and even concrete) to show that the football that absorb Blue Ghost can manage difficult landing conditions.
Lightening to 2.5 mph (3.5 km/h), the contact sensors in the footpads will signal the touchdown. And the drama of the past hour will be supplanted by the silence and serenity of an unchanged landscape for millions of years.
Tons of technology
So the Blue Ghost 1 mission can really start. For 14 days, Blue Ghost’s tools will patrol their surroundings and test technologies that could benefit from future human explorers. Magnetotelluric Sounder of the Southwest Research Institute, a magnetometer on top of an 8-foot tree (2.5 m), the lunar cloak will lift up to a depth of 700 miles (1,100 km)-third of the road up to the nucleus of the moon. And the lunar instrumentation of Texas Tech University for the thermal exploration of the subsoil quickly will perform from 7 to 10 foot (from 2.1 to 3.3 m) in the ground, measuring the heat flow inside.
The next generation lunar retoreflector of the University of Maryland will help measuring the distance of the terrestrial moon with underwater precision, offering clues to the lunar interior and facing questions about general relativity and dark matter. The X-ray imagers of the hemospheric of the lunar-private environment from NASA, Boston University and Johns Hopkins University-observing the interactions between the Earth’s magnetosphere and the sunny wind.
The characterization of adherence to the regolite of Aegis Aerospace will evaluate how abrasive lunar soil affects different materials, including solar cells, optics and spatial coatings. And the computer tolerant to the radiation of the Montana State University will tester the hardened elaboration electronics on the surface without aerxy air of the moon.
NASA’s stereo cameras for studies on the surface of the lunar plume will meet and video to reveal how the Missilistic exhaust of Blue Ghost moves the ground, rocks and dust. The data of its six tiny cameras will provide views on the 3D surface before and after the touchdown, offering insights on how heavy Landers and large habitats can have landed safely.
Lunar Planetvac of Honeybee Robotics will use pressurized gas to pneumatically sucking the land champions of the size of a pebble in a collection chamber as a precursor for future network missions. And the electrodynamic shield of NASA will use electric fields to remove the lunar powder from the lander, test possible future use to clean solar panels, radiators, camera lenses and astrode, boots and visual of the harmful material.
Finally, the experiment of the U.S. Lunar/Italian GNSS receiver aims to discern the weak signals of the satellite surfing system from the lunar distance for the first time-child by allowing GPS-based GPS sensors to be used in the future missions of the moon.
More on the horizon
Although it counts until mission 1, Firefly is already planning the 2 mission and annual Blue Ghost flights beyond. In March 2023, he won an order of 112 million dollars CLPS for a 2026 mission to obtain three payloads on the lunar Faride, including a seismometer built in Australia and an Astrophysical experiment of NASA.
The 2 mission also debuts Firefly’s dark transfer vehicle. After sending a Blue Ghost Lander to the farthest side of the Luna-Oltre, the direct line of view with the Terra-Elitra Dark will release the European Pathfinder satellite as a reference to data for the Lander.
Note of the editor: This story was updated on January 8 with the details of the scheduled launch date.
