What is Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission?
At 01:11 am (EST) on Wednesday 15 January, Blue Ghost Mission 1, named Ghost Riders in the Sky, was launched aboard a Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre in Florida. It marks the beginning of what Firefly Aerospace hopes will be an annual occasion to bring payloads to the lunar surface on rideshare missions, further helping the Texas company establish its dominance in the end-to-end responsive space services sector.
Targeting a landing date of March 2, the lander separated from its launch vehicle, acquired a signal from Firefly’s mission control in Ceder Park, Texas and completed on-orbit commissioning, which included verifying attitude determination and control capabilities, increasing the data transfer rate, establishing a power-positive attitude, and completing initial lander health checks, to set out on its 45-day transit to the moon. It should spend 25 days in a highly elliptical Earth orbit, 4 days in lunar transit and 16 days in Lunar orbit to enable the team to calibrate the propulsion system for critical manoeuvres, begin payload science operations and conduct health checks on each subsystem. Following this period, it should operate for 14 days (1 lunar day) on the lunar service with 10 instruments as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative as part of NASA’s Artemis campaign to establish a long-term presence on the Moon and prepare for Martian exploration. Two of the NASA payloads will operate during the Earth-to-Moon transit, one called LuGRE, designed by the Italian Space Agency, which is set to monitor GPS and Galileo satellite signals to help extend Global Navigation Satellite System capabilities to the Lunar surface and test signal acquisition and usage during Earth-to-Moon transit, and the other, called RadPC, created by Montana State University, which will run as a test to see how the onboard computers withstand to space radiation whilst in orbit. Just a few hours after the launch, six of the NASA payloads (RadPC, SCALPSS, LPV, LISTER, LuGRE, and EDS) began to send back initial data and the Blue Ghost also sent back its first image, which shows the top deck of the lander, along with the X-band antenna and NASA’s LEXI payload.
On January 18, Blue Ghost completed its first engine burn with the RCS thrusters and main engine, the team also managed to hit within 2mm/s of their target Delta V (acceleration) on their first attempt. This burn was to increase the lander’s perigee (closest point to Earth) to prepare them for the next critical manoeuvre. This occurred after January 17 was spent priming the bi-propellant (distributing the fuel and oxidizer to the engines).
Just before nightfall of the lunar day, Blue Ghost is set to capture high-definition imagery of a total eclipse from the Moon when the Earth blocks the Sun. This phenomenon was last captured by Eugene Cernan on Apollo 17, where he witnessed the horizon glow whilst the lunar dust appeared to levitate on the surface. Firefly Aerospace CEO, Jason Kim, said “As a tribute to the last Apollo Astronaut to walk on the Moon, we’re honoured to have the opportunity to watch this incredible sight in high definition.”
Afterwards, the lander will also capture the lunar sunset to help provide data on how the lunar regolith reacts to solar influences during the lunar dusk. During the mission, there will also be several science and technology demonstrations, such as:
Lunar subsurface drilling
Sample collection
X-ray imaging
Dust Mitigation
Mission Plan for ‘Ghost Riders in the Sky’
The preparations for launch started a month before Blue Ghost left the launchpad, with the lander arriving at Kennedy Space Centre on December 16 to begin pre-launch operations. These included
Final inspections
Functional checkouts
Battery charging (which was finished on December 23)
MMH hyperbolic propellant and MON-3 oxidizer loading (finished on January 8)
Integration/fairing encapsulation with the Falcon 9 rocket (completed January 10)
After the fairing was safely encapsulated, it was mated to SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and transported to the launch pad on January 14.
Named after a rare firefly species found in the southeast region of the USA, known for its distinctive blue glow, the Blue Ghost lunar lander is 2 meters tall with a diameter of 3.5 meters. It can take up to 2,700kg to orbit and 150kg to the Moon’s surface. The lander is customisable depending on the customer’s needs and compatible with different launch vehicle providers. It can also provide data, power and thermal resources for lunar missions as well as being paired with the Elytra orbital vehicle to provide long-haul communications and interplanetary transport. On this year’s mission, Blue Ghost is carrying 94kg of payloads to Mare Crisium, a 500km wide lunar basin on the near side of the moon.
Firefly Aerospace is a portfolio company of AE Industrial Partners (AEI) focused on providing affordable, rapid, and reliable space access for both government and commercial customers. It boasts a range of small- to medium-lift launch vehicles, lunar landers and orbital vehicles to provide the space industry with a one-stop shop for low Earth orbit (LEO) and lunar surface missions.
