Firefly’s Blue Ghost Lander Bids Farewell to Earth on Its Way to the Moon


Goodbye, land. Firefly’s lunar landing captured views of its home planet in the back -to -back mirror as it headed to orbit around the moon, aiming at a landing on its dust surface in about two weeks.

The Blue Ghost Lander completed its trans-moon injection maneuver on Wednesday, a series of burns of an engine designed to put the spacecraft into a lunar orbit. After spending three weeks in a very elliptical orbit around the Earth, the mission officially left the planet and is on the way to the Moon, according to Firefly Aerospace. Before throwing the ground completely, Firefly’s blue ghost grabbed gorgeous separate shots to commemorate the start of his journey.

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A blue ghost captured this image of the earth with the moon below in the distance. Credit: Firefly Aerospace

The blue ghost mission launched on Wednesday, January 15, on board A Spacex Falcon 9 Rocket And now there are about halfway from his trip to the moon. The mission, called “ghost riders in the sky”, will spend about 16 days in a lunar orbit before trying a soft landing on the lunar surface.

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The reflection of the earth on the sun panels of a blue ghost. Credit: Firefly Aerospace

A blue ghost captured this trippyy image of the earth reflected by the solar panel with the moon on the horizon. Firefly’s X-band antenna and NASA’s Lexi load is also visible on the Under deck of the Lander.

Four weeks after the mission, a Blue Ghost emptied more than 15 gigabytes of data, including data from NASA’s scientific loads. The Space Agency packed 10 loads on a blue ghost, which are ready to be deployed on the Moon as part of NASA’s commercial Lunar Cargo Services. The loads are designed to study the lunar surface and collect data to support future human missions to the Moon.

The stereo cameras for Lunar Plume Surface Studies (ScalPSS) 1.1 instrument, projected by researchers at NASA’s Langley Research Center, will use four cameras to capture images of the interaction between the rocket feathers and foot pads of the moon the spacecraft of the spacecraft. and landing. “All 10 NASA charges on board are currently healthy and ready for surface operations on the moon,” the agency wrote In a blog update.

After it reaches the moon, a blue ghost targets Mare Crisium, the site of an ancient asteroid effect once filled with a basaltic lava. The basalts in Mare Crisium have between 2.5 and 3.3 billion years, according to NASA. We are all rooted for Blue Ghost to have a smooth landing on the moon and paste the landing.



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