The Firefly CEO says the launch of the company’s Blue Ghost lunar lander early next year represents a historic moment for the US and is essential to paving the way for future human missions to the lunar surface as part of NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration program.
“This is historic because, as a nation, we haven’t successfully stuck a landing on the Moon for over 52 years,” said Jason Kim during a media briefing early on December 18, 2024 (AEDT).
“Even more significantly, this will be the first time a private company does a soft landing, or any landing, on the Moon. It shows that the commercial world has a lot of affordable and responsive technology and systems.”
The Blue Ghost lunar lander will launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. The six-day launch window opens no earlier than mid-January 2025.
A science focus for the first Blue Ghost mission
The mission will carry ten NASA instruments, which will undertake first-of-their-kind demonstrations to improve understanding of the Moon’s environment and help prepare for future human missions.
“The Moon is the gateway to other planets, like Mars. What we’re doing with this first Blue Ghost mission is enabling the frequency of very affordable and high-value science missions,” said Kim.
As part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative and the Artemis campaign, Blue Ghost will have ten science payloads onboard that will undertake investigations, including testing lunar subsurface drilling, regolith sample collection, global navigation satellite system abilities, radiation tolerant computing, and lunar dust mitigation.
“We’ve got a nice variety of payloads on board,” says NASA’s Ryan Watkins. “We’re going to be measuring heat flow from the interior of the Moon to better understand the interior structure. We’ve got payloads that will be looking at the structure of the Moon’s mantle by measuring electric and magnetic fields.”
“We’ve got a couple of technology demonstrations that will help support operations on this mission and future missions, like looking at mitigating dust built up on different materials,” she added. ” There is also a payload that looks at the Earth’s magnetic field and how it interacts with solar winds. These are all really interesting investigations and science to help us better understand the Moon’s structure.”
Firefly a beneficiary of NASA’s CLPS program
NASA awarded Firefly Aerospace USD93.3 million in 2021 to develop Blue Ghost. The 60-day mission will include 45 days of transit to the Moon and 14 days on the lunar surface, landing within Mare Crisium, a more than 300-mile-wide basin in the northeast quadrant of the Moon’s near side.
Under the CLPS program, NASA is investing in commercial delivery services to the Moon to enable industry growth and underpin long-term lunar exploration. Firefly is one of many beneficiaries of the program. NASA has ordered two lunar landers from Firefly and in time, the company intends to use them to regularly deliver small payloads to the Moon.
“We’re proud that Firefly will support NASA’s vertical science and technology operations and pave the way for a lasting presence on the Moon for our nation and our partners,” said the Firefly CEO. “While we recognise that there will be challenges ahead, Firefly stands ready to perform this soft landing on the Moon.”
