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The US-based private company is one of many currently focused on advancing space exploration.
On Sunday (2 March) Blue Ghost, Firefly Aerospace’s lunar lander touched down on the moon’s surface, near a volcanic feature called Mons Latreille, having travelled more than 2.8m miles in 45 days. The spacecraft was launched from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida on board a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
As part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services programme (CLPS) intended to leverage private industry to support the agency’s exploration of the moon, the lander carried 10 scientific and technological payloads, including NASA instruments designed to study lunar dust, radiation and surface materials.
Research will be carried out for one lunar day, which is roughly two weeks on Earth, and instruments on board will enable the monitoring of the moon’s internal heat flow, prevent lunar dust from accumulating on equipment and power a retroreflector for laser-ranging experiments.
“Firefly is literally and figuratively over the moon,” said Jason Kim, the CEO of Firefly Aerospace. “Our Blue Ghost lunar lander now has a permanent home on the lunar surface with 10 NASA payloads and a plaque with every Firefly employee’s name.
“This bold, unstoppable team has proven we’re well equipped to deliver reliable, affordable access to the moon and we won’t stop there. With annual lunar missions, Firefly is paving the way for a lasting lunar presence that will help unlock access to the rest of the solar system for our nation, our partners and the world.”
Firefly Aerospace regards itself as being the first private firm to make a fully successful soft landing on the moon. Houston-based Intuitive Machines had a less than perfect run last year with the Odysseus lunar landing, damaging some of its onboard equipment.
There has been a surge of late in private companies looking to contribute to space exploration, as NASA and other agencies increasingly look to commercial partners to achieve scientific and technological breakthroughs.
Firefly has a tight schedule for the next two weeks, which will include lunar subsurface drilling, sample collection, X-ray imaging and dust mitigation experiments.
The project will also aim to capture high-definition imagery of a number of key events, including a total eclipse when the Earth blocks the sun above the moon’s horizon, the lunar sunset and levitating dust behavior changes after the sunset.
“With the hardest part behind us, Firefly looks forward to completing more than 14 days of surface operations, again raising the bar for commercial cislunar capabilities,” said Shea Ferring, chief technology officer at Firefly Aerospace. “Just through transit to the moon, Firefly’s mission has already delivered the most science data to date for the NASA CLPS initiative.
“CLPS has played a key role in Firefly’s evolution from a rocket company to a provider of launch, lunar and on-orbit services from LEO to cislunar and beyond. We want to thank NASA for entrusting the Firefly team, and we look forward to delivering even more science data that supports future human missions to the moon and Mars.”
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