Firefly Aerospace’s first mission to the moon is poised to launch in the early morning hours on Jan. 15.
The company’s Blue Ghost lunar lander is sharing a payload bay with another mission to the moon’s surface, the Resilience probe from private Japanese company ispace. The two are launching on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, scheduled to liftoff no earlier than Wednesday, at 1:11 a.m. ET (0611 GMT), from Launch Complex-39B at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida.
Blue Ghost Mission 1, which Firefly has dubbed Ghost Riders in the Sky, was selected through NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. CLPS contracts companies to deliver NASA science and payloads to the surface of the moon, largely in support of the agency’s Artemis program to land astronauts back on the lunar surface. “We’re doing this to take advantage of the technical innovation and entrepreneurship that we see in American private industry to accomplish public goals,” said Associate Administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate Joel Kearns, during a mission briefing last month.
A total of 10 NASA payloads, more than any CLPS mission to date, are flying on Ghost Riders in the Sky, and include science and technology demonstrations for testing conditions at every step of the lunar lander’s journey between Earth orbit and the moon’s surface.
You may like
Before ever arriving in lunar orbit, experiments on the Blue Ghost lander will measure solar wind particles in Earth’s magnetic field, test radiation-resistant computer hardware and utilize existing GPS satellites for navigation around the moon.
Once on the lunar surface, a suite of other equipment will continue Blue Ghost’s mission with analyses of regolith, heat flow and electrical conductivity under the moon’s surface, as well as testing the use of an electric current to clean spacecraft components and reflecting lasers to measure to moon’s distance from Earth.
Related: Firefly Aerospace completes Blue Ghost moon lander for January 2025 SpaceX launch
Next Generation Lunar Retroreflector (NGLR)
The Next Generation Lunar Retroreflector (NGLR) will reflect pulses shot from Earth-based Lunar Laser Ranging Observatories (LLROs) to measure the distance between Earth and the moon. This experiment builds on one first performed on the Apollo missions, but with much higher accuracy. “Some of the same people are working that program that are working this one,” Dennis Harris told Space.com in a pre-flight interview. Harris is mission manager for NGLR and four other payloads flying on Blue Ghost Mission 1.
Building on the successes of Apollo experiments, NGLR will be capable of measuring the distance to the moon within the sub-millimeter range to improve navigation and coordination of spacecraft in the lunar environment. The new mirrors also feature an angular component to redirect laser pulses to a receiving station back on Earth, rather than straight back to their LLRO point of origin. NGLR will also collect data relevant to the moon’s interior and theories about dark matter.
Regolith Adherence Characterization (RAC)
The Regolith Adherence Characterization (RAC) experiment is one of a handful of payloads on Blue Ghost focused on lunar regolith, or moon dust. In fact, the Mare Crisium landing site was chosen specifically because of its smooth, not rocky landscape, according to Firefly’s Spacecraft Program Director Ray Allensworth.
RAC provides two cylindrical wheels, each with 15 sample surfaces. One of these wheels will be exposed the entire mission, while the second will remain stowed until science operations begin on the lunar surface, post-landing. RAC will sample different surfaces for exposure to the lunar environment after landing, and will investigate their changes over time.
Regolith is like sand, only much finer, almost like a powder. It’s incredibly abrasive, and caused Apollo astronauts endless headaches on the lunar surface. Following their walks through the moon dust, Apollo astronauts found regolith obscuring their helmet visors, grinding inside joints of their spacesuits, tracking inside their spacecraft and compromising vacuum seals.
“It’s very important,” Harris said. “Regolith is not good for anything.” The samples include things like glass, Teflon and other materials associated with the designs of spacesuits, spacecraft, and lunar habitats and infrastructure. Observation of the materials’ deterioration over time will help researchers better understand how regolith affects the different surfaces, informing designs for future missions to the moon.
Electrodynamic Dust Shield (EDS)
Another payload involving regolith is the Electrodynamic Dust Shield (EDS). Without any moving parts, EDS aims to help prevent dust buildup on equipment deployed on the lunar surface by lifting and transporting the material with different electrical currents.
“There’s a high need for technology that can really mitigate the dust without the use of astronaut interference,” EDS Principle Investigator Dr. Charles Buhler told Space.com.
As it applies to the types of infrastructure astronauts will one day need on the moon, EDS could be used to clean regolith buildup from the surface of solar panels, glass windows, radiators and other equipment sensitive to particle accumulation.
“We learned from Apollo the challenges of lunar dust, and how it kind gets everywhere,” says Kristen John, NASA’s Technical Integration Lead for the Lunar Surface Innovation Initiative (LSI). Regolith.
“There might be suit parts of the suit that absolutely would love to have an EDS,” suggests Dr. Buhler. “The helmet would be useful. You don’t want to use your astronaut hand to wipe the dust off, because the dust is very abrasive. It’ll scratch just about any surface. So you want to make sure you have some mechanism to remove dust from that. EDS can be very useful.”
Stereo Cameras for Lunar Plume-Surface Studies (SCALPSS)
Stereo Cameras for Lunar Plume-Surface Studies (SCALPSS) will collect imaging data of the moon during Blue Ghost’s descent to the surface. Rather than studying the effects regolith has on spacecraft, SCALPSS will study the effects of spacecraft on lunar regolith. SCALPSS will use a suite of cameras to record the interaction of the probe’s landing engines with surface dust, and measure the displaced plume of regolith kicked up from the exhaust crater. An earlier version of SCALPSS flew on Intuitive Machines’ IM-1 mission. This payload, technically SCALPSS 1.1, features two additional cameras for capturing images at a higher altitude, before the lander’s engines interact with the regolith below.
“What we’re really trying to understand is plume-surface interactions (PSI),” says SCALPSS payload manager Rob Maddock. “How do we predict it? How do we measure it? How do we better design both landers and surface assets to account for things like PSI? We have very little data on the physics behind how a rocket exhaust plume interacts with lunar regolith in a vacuum,” Maddock told Space.com.
With no way to simulate dust in lunar gravity on Earth, researchers currently only have anecdotal data from Apollo astronauts to help understand how a larger lander might affect the lunar surface.
“[Apollo 12] landed about 150 meters (500 feet) away from Surveyor 3, and when the astronauts approached it, they saw that it was completely sandblasted and it had holes in it from larger rocks that were picked up from the Apollo landing,” Maddock said. The lunar lander during the Apollo missions stood 22 feet (7 meters) tall with its landing legs deployed. The next time astronauts land on the moon will be during NASA’s Artemis 3 mission. Comparatively, that lander — SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft — stands over 160 feet (50 meters) tall, and will kick up significantly more regolith than its predecessor.
“If we can understand what’s going on, and even better, if we can figure out a way to predict it based on the [topography] or [engine] design, then maybe we can go and make changes to the lander design to help minimize it.” Maddock said.
Lunar Environment Heliospheric X-ray Imager (LEXI)
The Lunar Environment Heliospheric X-ray Imager (LEXI) will monitor the interaction of solar wind with Earth’s magnetosphere, and how energy in that environment generates geomagnetic storms and space weather. “This will be the first global measurement of the limb of the planet and how the solar wind affects it,” said Harris.
LEXI is a soft X-ray telescope, and unlike many of the Blue Ghost payloads, it won’t be waiting until the lander touches down on the moon to get to work. It will begin doing internal measurements around the Earth shortly after launch.
Lunar Magnetotelluric Sounder (LMS)
The Lunar Magnetotelluric Sounder (LMS) will use the interaction of solar wind and Earth’s magnetic fields to help calculate the electrical conductivity profile inside the moon.
The probe will deploy a magnetometer on a mast, as well as electrodes from each other the lander’s four corners. The experiment will help determine the temperature structure and history of the moon, and differentiate Mare Crisium from the Apollo landing locations to the relatively nearby west.
Lunar Instrumentation for Subsurface Thermal Exploration with Rapidity (LISTER)
The Lunar Instrumentation for Subsurface Thermal Exploration with Rapidity (LISTER) experiment will drill between 6-9 feet (2-3 meters) to measure heat flow at various depths beneath the moon’s surface. The instrument will measure how well heat flows via conduction, and the thermal changes between depths.
LISTER mission manager Mike Selby hopes the instrument will be included on future missions to other locations around the moon to gain a composite understanding of the lunar subsurface. “If we’re going to be at the moon for longer periods of time, let’s learn about what resources are there, how it was formed, and what we may be able to do to take advantage of those things for that long term,” Selby told Space.com
Radiation Tolerant Computer System (RadPC)
The Radiation Tolerant Computer System (RadPC) is a technology demo aimed at executing a set of fault mitigation strategies to protect a computer’s hardware from damage caused by ionizing radiation in space and on the moon. Other than during descent to the lunar surface, RadPC will remain active to take measurements throughout Blue Ghost’s entire mission.
“This is an exciting program for NASA,” Harris says of RadPC. “Radiation-hardened equipment is really expensive. It’s hard to make, it’s very expensive and it has more mass,” he explained. “[RadPC] is a lot of commercial, off-the-shelf parts.” The move to lighter, cheaper, more effective components to guard against radiation damage, is “long-term mission stuff,” Harris says. “This is the moon. This is Mars. This is deep space.”
Lunar PlanetVac (LPV)
The Lunar PlanetVac (LPV) will be used to collect lunar regolith samples using a novel pneumatic procedure powered by compressed gas. The technique will be used to collect surface samples on the moon for analysis by other onboard instruments. The devices internal design allows for transfer of collected samples to multiple applications, allowing complex test analysis to be completed without any astronaut intervention.
“Instead of digging or drilling, LPV is going to use compressed gas to blow regolith into a canister,” Harris explained, then inquiring, “now, what do you do with that canister? You can pick it up, you can send it back to Earth, and I think in the future, they’ll be able to distribute it to any onboard instruments, like a spectrometer, that can really do in-situ measurements of the lunar surface,” he said.
Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment (LuGRE)
The Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment (LuGRE) demonstration will use Earth’s GPS network to triangulate Blue Ghost’s position on and around the moon. The existing Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) for spacecraft navigation and position tracking consists of satellites positioned around the planet, casting wide beams to triangulate location information on Earth. Some of those beams are wide enough to cast beyond Earth, and are strong enough for detection by receivers on Blue Ghost.
LuGRE will assess the GPS signals for use for precise positioning in the lunar environment, and provide data to better calibrate those measurements for future use. The payload is a joint project between NASA and the Italian Space Agency (ASI), and aims to provide a temporary service where a cislunar tracking infrastructure does not yet exist.
JJ Miller is the Executive Director of the National Space-based Position, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) Advisory Board, and says until we have a lunar positioning system, we have to utilize the technologies we already have. “GPS is always on, always available, ultra reliable … Why would we not use it?” he told Space.com.
Miller calls the demonstration an “interim solution,” saying LUGRE “sets the stage for bigger and better things,” like a future Martian GPS for missions to the red planet.
Blue Ghost’s total mission will last approximately 60 days from launch to the lander’s loss of power following the lunar sunset, which mission managers are expecting to be its own spectacle for the lander to witness.
After launch, Blue Ghost will spend 25 days orbiting the Earth, followed by a translunar-injection burn and four-day transit to lunar orbit, where it will fly for another 16 days.
Once it lands, Blue Ghost will spend a full lunar day (two weeks) operating on the surface of the moon, collecting its research data and completing technology demonstrations before darkness falls on Mare Crisium.
The setting sun will leave Blue Ghost without a source of energy, leaving about five hours of juice left in the lander’s batteries. But, before it powers down, two solar events will occur at the dusk of Blue Ghosts mission.
First, the Earth will pass in front of the sun, and the lander will witness a lunar solar eclipse for the first time.
Then, with its last bit of power, Blue Ghost will use its 360-degree camera to capture a phenomenon observed by Gene Cernan during the end of his time on the moon on Apollo 17, wherein a glow on the horizon shines while lunar dust begins levitate on the surface.
RELATED STORIES:
“A fun part about the commercial lunar payload services initiative is that we contract with a number of different companies to do lunar landings, and we get a feel of how different they all are in their technical approach, their culture, what their strengths are,” said NASA’s Science Mission Directorate Deputy Associate Administrator for Exploration, Joel Kearns.
The Science Mission Directorate’s Associate Administrator Nicky Fox agrees, and stresses the importance of the CLPS program. “We actually want to create a sustainable lunar economy, and the way to do that is to invest in these new companies so they do become commercially viable, and then we keep this very strong, sustained presence on the moon.”
Firefly CEO Jason Kim says Blue Ghost Mission 1 is one of many poised to provide the scientific community with significant amounts of meaningful data. “There’s a lot of things that are going on at Firefly, as well as other companies like us, where we’re developing new capabilities that we could leverage and pass the savings on to NASA, and do it reliably and repeatably,” Kim told Space.com.
“That helps with exploration, and helps us with life on Earth as well.”
