Uncrewed Blue Ghost spacecraft touches down on the moon

Firefly Aerospace has became the second US company to land on the moon with its debut Blue Ghost lander, kicking off a two-week research mission as one of a handful of private firms to reach the frontlines of a global moon race.

The size of a compact car, the four-legged Blue Ghost carried 10 scientific payloads as it touched down on Sunday near an ancient volcanic vent on Mare Crisium, a large basin in the northeast corner of the moon’s Earth-facing side.

Flight controllers at Firefly’s Austin, Texas headquarters watched as Blue Ghost descended toward the moon’s surface, confirming on a live stream that the spacecraft had entered lunar gravity.

“We’re on the moon,” a company official in mission control declared.

Firefly became the second private firm to score a soft moon landing. Houston-based Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus lander made a lopsided soft touchdown last year. Five nations have made successful soft landings in the past - the then-Soviet Union, the US, China, India and, last year, Japan.

Flight controllers at Firefly’s Austin, Texas, headquarters had sent final commands to Blue Ghost as it lowered its lunar orbit, flying about 383,000km from Earth a month and a half after launching atop a SpaceX rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre in Florida.

“Every single thing was clockwork, even when we landed, and then after, we saw everything was stable and upright,” Firefly CEO Jason Kim said on stage at a company watch event in Austin.

In the audience were hundreds of Firefly employees, space industry officials and senior NASA leaders, including the agency’s acting administrator Janet Petro.

The moonshot by Firefly, an upstart primarily building rockets, is one of three lunar missions actively in progress. Japan’s ispace launched its second lander on the same rocket as Firefly’s in January, before Intuitive Machines embarked on its second lunar mission on Wednesday.

with AP