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Blue Ghost Mission 1: lunar lander fully assembled.
Firefly Aerospace is readying its first lunar lander to launch during a six-day window that opens no earlier than mid-January 2025, the company announced Nov. 25.
The Cedar Park, Texas, company completed environmental testing on the Blue Ghost lunar lander and is now preparing to ship the spacecraft to Cape Canaveral in mid-December ahead of launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
The launch, dubbed Blue Ghost Mission 1, or “Ghost Riders in the Sky,” is the first of three task orders supporting NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative.
Blue Ghost “aced” the environmental testing and is performing “100% as expected,” Firefly Aerospace CEO Jason Kim said in a company statement. The environmental testing was completed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in mid-October, during which the lander was subjected to the most extreme temperatures it will experience during transit and on the Moon’s surface in a thermal vacuum chamber. The testing also included vibration, acoustic, electromagnetic interference and compatibility tests, Firefly says.
The company is now conducting mission simulations as it awaits approval to ship Blue Ghost to the Cape. The lunar lander was originally scheduled to launch by year’s end.
Once it is launched and separated from the rocket, Blue Ghost will spend about 45 days in transit to the Moon, where it will land in Mare Crisium and operate payloads for a full lunar day—equivalent to 14 Earth days.
The 10 payloads aboard will perform several science and technology demonstrations, including lunar subsurface drilling, sample collection, and dust mitigation meant to promote research for future human missions on the Moon. It will also demonstrate X-ray imaging of Earth’s magnetic field and share insights into how space weather impacts the planet.
Once payload operations are complete, Blue Ghost will capture the lunar sunset and operate for several hours into the lunar night. Firefly’s Mission Operations Center will oversee the approximately 60-day mission, the company says.
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