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The early morning of March 2, the Blue Ghost ship of Firefly Aerospace fell gently on the lunar surface. It was the First time in history that a private company achieved a completely successful moon landing: in vertical and with the solar panels well -oriented to survive the 14 days that a lunar day lasts.
Blue Ghost nailed the moon landing. Preceded by the failures of the Beresheet ships (From the Israeli company Spaceil), Hakuto-R (of the Japanese ispace), Pilgrim (of the American astrobotic) and Odysseus (also American intuitive machines), Blue Ghost landed in a stable position after a descent maneuver designed to dodge rocks and dangerous geographical accidents.
The lunar module touched soil in the Mare Crisium region, near the volcanic formation of Mons Latreille. The instruments and sensors on board reported that Blue Ghost was at an optimal angle, and the first images of the shadow projected by the Firefly Aerospace ship showed that it had perched on the lunar surface vertically.
A respite for NASA. The historical achievement of the Texana company is also an achievement for NASA, which breathes quiet after the first round of the CLPS program (Commercial Lunar Payload Services), designed to send regular missions to the Moon in commercial ships.
Intuitive machines I could achieve the second in a couple of dayswhen its new Nova-C module athens tries to alunize in the South Lunar Pole after Nova-C Odysseus overturns in February 2024.
The Ghost Riders. On board the Blue Ghost module of Firefly there is a series of instruments, experiments and technological demonstrators, mainly from NASA, that will drill the soil to collect samples, investigate how the dust rises to mitigate the problems they represent in future lunar missions, and measure the level of radiation and the magnetic activity in the environment.
Blue Ghost will display and operate these loads for 14 terrestrial days, equivalent to a lunar day, before the lack of sunlight and the very low temperatures compromise their batteries.
An eclipse of earth. Blue Ghost has already given us overwhelming images of the Dawn on the moon or the Planet Earth in the firmament. “We are all in that image,” Firefly engineers recalled during the press conference. But the best will come in the last days of mission.
Among the planned mission milestones are the capture in high definition of a total eclipse on March 14, when the earth blocks the sun from the perspective of the ship on the moon, as well as a recording of the lunar twilight on March 16 in which we will see the lunar dust levitating.
The Renaissance of Firefly Aerospace. The Firefly feat is especially remarkable taking into account the recent history of the company, marked by a bankruptcy, an internal scandal and a sound change in property.
Firefly was saved by the Ukrainian inverter Max Polykovwho invested around 200 million dollars and resurrected the company. However, Polykov was forced by the United States government to sell its majority participation in 2022 for a symbolic price of 1 dollar. And all for geopolitical reasons.
Since then, Firefly was under the majority control of the private capital firm AE Industrial Partners. His current CEO is Jason Kim, who assumed the company’s management in October 2024 after his predecessor, Bill Weber, retired from An alleged inappropriate relationship With an employee.
Image | Firefly Aerospace
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