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US spacecraft Blue Ghost lands on the Moon
Nicknamed "Ghost Riders in the Sky," the Blue Ghost mission comes just over a year after the first-ever commercial lunar landing
US private space firm Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghosh Mission 1 landed on the moon's surface on Sunday.
“We have confirmation #BlueGhost stuck the landing! Firefly just became the first commercial company in history to achieve a fully successful Moon landing. This small step on the Moon represents a giant leap in commercial exploration. Congratulations to the entire Firefly team, our mission partners, and our @NASA customers for this incredible feat that paves the way for future missions to the Moon and Mars,” the company said on X.
Nicknamed "Ghost Riders in the Sky," the mission comes just over a year after the first-ever commercial lunar landing and is part of a NASA partnership with industry to cut costs and support Artemis, the programme aiming to return astronauts to the Moon.
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“T-2 hours until #BlueGhost performs a Descent Orbit Insertion and begins her trajectory towards our final destination: the Moon's Mare Crisium. This 19-second burn will be performed on the far side of the Moon in a planned comms blackout. Once we regain signal about 20 minutes after the burn, our #GhostRiders will conduct a health check to confirm the road to Mare Crisium is clear,” Firefly Aerospace had said in an X post a while ago.
According to AFP, the golden lander, about the size of a hippopotamus, launched on January 15 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, capturing stunning footage of Earth and the Moon along the way. It shared a ride with a Japanese company's lander set to attempt a landing in May.
Blue Ghost carrying 10 instruments
Blue Ghost carries ten instruments, including a lunar soil analyzer, a radiation-tolerant computer and an experiment testing the feasibility of using the existing global satellite navigation system to navigate the Moon.
According to an AFP report, the Blue Ghost will record a lunar sunset, offering insights into how dust levitates above the surface under solar influence -- creating the mysterious lunar horizon glow first documented by Apollo astronaut Eugene Cernan.
The missions come at a delicate moment for NASA, amid speculation that it may scale back or even cancel its Artemis lunar program in favor of prioritizing Mars exploration -- a key goal of both President Donald Trump and his close advisor, SpaceX founder Elon Musk.
(With AFP inputs)
