Update : March 2 , 11:07 a.m. ET : Firefly ’s Blue Ghost lander perform a successful landing place on the Moon earlier today .
Original article follows :
A private lunar lander is pitch up for its particular date with destiny . Firefly Aerospace ’s Blue Ghost has been in space for 44 days , and on Sunday it will attempt to finally execute a soft landing place on the Moon .
Rendering of Blue Ghost on the lunar surface.© Firefly Aerospace
fire beetle will be livestreaming the landing attempt on itsYouTube Sir Frederick Handley Page . The livestream will start at 2:20 a.m. ET on Sunday , March 2 , about 75 bit before Blue Ghost is schedule to adjoin down at 3:34 a.m. ET . you could also watch the landing place at the livefeed below .
Resilience engage a easygoing pace to the Moon , orbiting Earth for 25 days , before enroll a 16 - daylight farseeing lunar orbit . That will come to an end with an hour - recollective pedigree to a region of the Moon known as Mare Crisium , a basin imprint by an asteroid collision .
The descent will be aided by onboard vision - based tools , to facilitate Blue Ghost avoid craters , rocks , slopes , and other chance . Once a suitable landing place spot is identified , Blue Ghost will apply its engines to slow up down , until it ’s directly over the site . Landing thrusters will fire to control its line of descent , slowing it to a unshakable 3 metrical foot ( 1 meter ) per secondly in the final 11 seconds .
Should everything go smoothly , it will then begin its schedule 16 days of control surface operations . That will entail put the 10 scientific instrument onboard to employ .
There will be much to do , as Firefly has touted the mission as a central part in humanity ’s return to the Moon . The lander will consider heat flow from the Moon ’s centre , as well as its inner structure , and provide data on how solar winds and Earth ’s magnetized theater of operations regard the lunar surface . The mission also have tests of several pieces of technology that could be inherent to NASA ’s Artemis program .
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As it comes to the remainder of its mission , Blue Ghost ’s cameras are expected to enamor some salient cosmic phenomena . On March 14 , the Earth will completely stop out the Sun , resulting in a entire occultation . Two days later , it will experience a lunar sunset , which is far rarer than on Earth . A full Clarence Shepard Day Jr. - Nox cycle on the Moon lasts about 29.5 Earth sidereal day . Sunsets up there also have some weird effects . debris in the lunar air , combined with electrically appoint mote , issue in what ’s known as alunar horizon burn .
Blue Ghost has already made history , as it is one of a record three landers head to the Moon at the same fourth dimension . The same SpaceX Falcon 9 skyrocket that transmit Blue Ghost also had another lander on board : Japanese company ispace ’s Resilience . That investigation took an even slower path , opting for a prolonged cranial orbit around Earth that helped it conserve fuel . On February 15 , Resilience completed a flyby of the Moon , but the landing wo n’t find until April .
nonrational Machine ’s Athena is the third lunar - bound slyness . Itlaunched on February 26alongside NASA ’s Lunar Trailblazer satellite , which hasalready die hard into some trouble . Athena is taking the most unmediated itinerary , and is schedule to attempt its landing on March 6 .
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This stuff might not have the human drama of Apollo 11 , but the fact remains that these lander are being blasted into infinite and sent stagger hundreds of thousands of nautical mile at preposterous speeds , only to seek to gently set down on a barren and ancient rock , all in the name of science . Humans can still do some rad shit when we put our minds to it .
blue ghostfirefly aerospaceLunar sciencethe moon
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