Firefly aerospace's blue ghost lunar lander is now headed for the moon after firing its engines to send it out of Earth orbit.
,Blue ghost Successfully performed a transplant lunar injection burn to eartha's gravitational pull and begin a 4-day transit to the mon's orbit, “Firefly stated on social media platform x on saturday (Feb. 8).
The lander launched on the “ghost riders in the sky” mission on jan. 15 atop a Spacex Falcon 9 Rockt Along With the Japanese Space Explocation Firm ispace's Resilience Moon LanderBoth Spacecraft Had Since Been Orbiting Earth, Preparaing for Transit to the Moon.
Blue Ghost Later Performed A Trajectory-CORRECTION Maneuver on Feb. 9 to refine the spacecraft's path and keep it on course for entering lunar orbit.
Blue Ghost will enter a high lunar orbit in the next few days and then begin lowering its orbit to get ready for a landing attempt.
“We's Firefly said.
Blue ghost has “merged” on to the highway to the moon! After a successful transmit lunar injection burn, our lander has left earth's orbit and begun its 4 day transit to the moon's orbit. We'll again This… pic.twitter.com/lhhemuriptFebruary 9, 2025
The lander is targeting a landing with Mare Crisium (“Sea of Crises”), a large basin on the moon's near side.
Blue ghost is flying to the moon as part of nasa's commercial lunar payload services (Clps) Program, which is pairing commercially developed landers with nasa scientific payloads for studying the mooon. The lander's Science objectives Include subsurface drilling, sample collection and x-ray imaging of earth's magnetic field and dust mitigation.
