Days before it makes a landing attempt on the moon, Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost spacecraft has shared some stunning visuals of the lunar surface. It entered the Moon's orbit earlier this month, capturing footage of the dark side from 120 km above the surface.
The new footage, shared on Firefly Aerospace's official X handle, features a close-up of the moon's far side, an area not visible from Earth. The video displays the moon's stony surface speckled with impact craters.
The side note read, "Earthrise, Earth set, repeat! Blue Ghost's third and final lunar orbit maneuver is complete! Early this morning, our #GhostRiders performed a 16-second burn with our RCS thrusters to enter a near-circular low lunar orbit."
It added, "Up next, we'll perform a 19-second Descent Orbit Insertion at our 100-km perilune to begin our descent to Blue Ghost's final destination, Mare Crisium, on March 2."
Earth rise, Earth set, repeat! Blue Ghost's third and final lunar orbit maneuver is complete! Early this morning, our #GhostRiders performed a 16-second burn with our RCS thrusters to enter a near-circular low lunar orbit. Up next, we'll perform a 19-second Descent Orbit… pic.twitter.com/B8ptv1D0yv
— Firefly Aerospace (@Firefly_Space) February 24, 2025
“The latest Moon footage captured by Firefly's Blue Ghost lunar lander is completely surreal,” said Joseph Marlin, Blue Ghost deputy chief engineer.
“Of course, we had an idea of how the imagery would look, but seeing the real-life footage of the Moon's craters and boulders from our very own spacecraft is such an inspiration, and really hits home how close we are to our final destination after all the hard work we've put into this mission,” he told CNN.
Our #GhostRiders completed another lunar orbit maneuver with a 3 minute, 18 second burn early this morning. This maneuver moved the lander from a high elliptical orbit to a much lower elliptical orbit around the Moon. Shortly after the burn, Blue Ghost captured incredible footage… pic.twitter.com/ygyMVpaBW4
— Firefly Aerospace (@Firefly_Space) February 18, 2025
Blue Ghost set off on its journey from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, US on January 15. After separating from the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, it established communications with the company's Mission Operations Center in Cedar Park, Texas.
As part of its journey, it spent approximately 25 days in Earth orbit, four days in lunar transit, then 16 days in lunar orbit.
Once it successfully lands in Mare Crisium, Blue Ghost will operate 10 NASA payloads for a complete lunar day, which is roughly 14 days on Earth. It is expected to support several science and technology demonstrations such as sample collection, X-ray imaging, lunar subsurface drilling and dust mitigation.
from NDTV News-World-news https://ift.tt/S8mPFIH
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