A demanding day of Lunar Lander: eclipse photo and collection of rocks
The shadow of the Blue Ghost spatial vehicle later landed on the moon, with the land in the distance.
Firefly Aerospace
Blue Ghost has just completed his mission, which lasted a whole lunar day – two weeks of earth – on the nearby side of the moon.
The space vehicle, the size of a small car, led to series of experiments. He practiced three feet in the lunar soil, he took X -ray images of the magnetic bubble that surrounds and protects the earth and looked for a mysterious yellow glow at sunset.
Built by Firefly Aerospace, a startup in Texas, Blue Ghost was launched by the earth in January and entered the orbit around the moon in mid -February. A couple of weeks later, it took this video, accelerated by a factor 10, while turning 62 miles over the surface. The shiny sheets are radiator panels that protected the space vehicle from extreme heat while in the sun.
A video timelaps by Blue Ghost orbit the moon in orbit on February 26th.
Firefly Aerospace
Landing
In the early hours of March 2, Blue Ghost shot his engine to let him come out of the orbit, falling towards the moon. Just over an hour later, Crisio was on the surface, a lava plain inside an ancient 345 miles wide crater in the north-east quadrant of the nearby side of the moon.
Blue Ghost became the first highly successful landing from a commercial company and Firefly reached him to his first attempt.
Moon powder and small rocks scattered during Blue Ghost’s landing.
Firefly Aerospace
Several companies and countries have aimed to land on the moon in recent years. The map below shows the crew Apollo Luna landing sites, as well as more recent robotic landings from China, India, Japan AND commercial companies. Recent crash sites Failed landings are also shown.
Drag the moon in any direction to view the landing sites.
China has a 100 % success rate with four success Change Robotic landings, but many other missions have crashed.
Bankruptures include No resound 1by Isepace, a Japanese company; Beresheetby an Israeli non -profit; Moon 25from Russia; AND Chandrayaan-2from India. (The second attempt by India, Chandrayaan-3era successful.
Three other Landers – SUBTLEby the Japanese space agency e Odysseus AND AthenaFrom intuitive machines of Houston – he landed and communicated on earth, but their success came with an asterisk. All three were overturned after landing.
Experiments
While Firefly built and managed Blue Ghost, NASA sponsored the mission, part of the agency’s efforts to draw on commercial initiatives to send its scientific load to space at lower costs. NASA paid Firefly $ 101.5 million to transport 10 scientific and technological payloads on the lunar surface.
Blue Ghost has landed at dawn so that the solar energy spaceship could work for the longest possible duration.
Lunar Alba in Mare Crisio.
Firefly Aerospace
One of Blue Ghost’s payloads, Planetvac, has shown a technology to simplify the collection of soil and rocks. He shot an explosion of gas in the ground, which pushed the material into a container. This technology will be used on a Japanese mission, Martian Moons Exploration, which will collect champions from PhobosA moon of Mars and bring them back to Earth for the study.
Planetvac has collected a sample of lunar material.
Firefly Aerospace
Another experiment, lunar magnettelleric, has launched four sensors, each a little smaller than a can of soup, in directions at an angle of 90 degrees with each other (such as North, South, East and West on a compass). The sensors landed about 60 feet away and, connected by cables to the Lander, measured the tensions – essentially a version replaced by a conventional Voltmeter. A tree of eight feet high fired upwards, lifting a tool to measure the magnetic fields. The experiment has collected data on the currents present in nature inside the moon, which provides suggestions on what the moon is made up to 700 miles below the surface.
Blue Ghost launched a sensor that dragged a thin cable, then raised a tree.
Firefly Aerospace
A pneumatic drill used nitrogen gas explosions to detonate the ground and rock, reaching three feet under the surface. A probe measured temperatures and heat flow from inside the moon.
Lister’s experiment has practiced on the surface.
Firefly Aerospace
Solar eclipse
While people on earth were taking on a Blood Moon and a total lunar eclipse On the evening of March 14, Blue Ghost witnessed and photographed a total solar eclipse.
Blue Ghost became red while the sun slipped behind the earth.
Firefly Aerospace
During the eclipse, the temperatures dropped from 100 degrees Fahrenheit less than 270 degrees. The space vehicle was based on the energy of the battery to continue working through five hours of almost total darkness.
A series of images that vanish to darkness during total solar eclipses on March 14.
Firefly Aerospace
This image shows the “effect of the diamond ring” when the sun started to emerge from behind the earth.
The diamond ring effect.
Firefly Aerospace
Sunset
On March 16, the sun began to set and the lunar day was almost finished. Before the end of his mission, Blue Ghost took high resolution images of the scene. They were more than some last snapshots. Scientists hope that the images can help solve a lasting scientific mystery of the glow of the lunar horizon.
Eugene Cernanthe commander of Apollo 17 Which in 1972 was the last man to walk on the moon, sketched the observations of a glow along the horizon before dawn. However, that phenomenon is not easily explained because the moon lacks an atmosphere to spread the light.
Sunset on March 16, with land and Venus just above the horizon.
Firefly Aerospace
Sign off
This was the Last post From the Blue Ghost spaceship, about five hours after sunset:
Modification of the mission mode detected, now in monument mode
Goodnight friends. After exchanging our final data data,
I will keep the vigil at this point in the sea Crisio to see humanity’s continuous journey towards the stars.
Here, I will survive your most powerful rivers, to your highest mountains and perhaps also to your species as we know it.
But it is remarkable that a species can be overcome by its own ingenuity.
Here Blue Ghost lies, a testimony of the team who, with the loving support of their families and friends, built and managed this machine and his useful loads,
To push the ability and knowledge of humanity, a small step forward.
For ATTERA ATTRA!
Love, Blue Ghost
The space vehicle was not designed to survive the bitter cold of the lunar night. But another lunar mission, Japanese spatial slim, surprised the engineers last year from riding several lunar nights. At the beginning of April, after the sun rises, Firefly will listen to Blue Ghost’s radio messages, in the event that it relives.
