Firefly Aerospace has published on its social networks a video transmitted by the Blue Ghost spacecraft. It recorded a solar eclipse in space.
Blue Ghost was launched on January 15. The mission is funded under a contract awarded to Firefly Aerospace under the CLPS program. On board the vehicle are ten scientific instruments given by NASA to be delivered to the Moon.
At the moment Blue Ghost is in an elongated Earth orbit, whose perigee is 200 kilometers and apogee is 322,000 kilometers. The spacecraft is collecting data on the interaction of the Earth’s magnetosphere with the solar wind. Blue Ghost also periodically sends selfies taken with its hull-mounted cameras. One of them captured a very spectacular moment when the Earth temporarily covered the Sun.
The vehicle will stay in Earth orbit until February 10. After that, it will perform a maneuver that will transfer it to near-lunar orbit. The landing is scheduled for March 2, 2025. Blue Ghost should land in the area of the Mare Crisium.
The mission’s science program includes studying the properties of the regolith and the structure of the lunar interior, conducting an experiment to pick up GPS signals, determining the exact distance between the Earth and the Moon, and testing a radiation-resistant computer. The vehicle is designed to operate for 14 days on the lunar surface.
More details about the technical design of Blue Ghost, as well as the Japanese RESILIENCE vehicle launched together with it, can be found in our material.