A robotic spacecraft has beamed house crisp movies and snapshots of Earth eclipsing the moon.
Although lunar eclipses usually aren’t that uncommon — stargazers can watch Earth’s shadow obscuring the moon a couple of occasions a yr — this was completely different.
Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander, a non-public spacecraft employed by NASA to take experiments to the moon, acquired a uncommon front-row seat of the spectacle in area. The phenomenon occurred when the blue marble got here between the moon and the spacecraft.
Blue Ghost, named after an unique species of firefly, captured the beneath footage whereas flying laps round Earth because it gears up for its first try at a lunar landing. Virtually two weeks in the past, the spacecraft witnessed one other majestic second when Earth eclipsed the solar.
“Right now, we are in a period where we’re mostly just coasting for the next week-and-a-half or so, until we do our (Trans Lunar Injection) maneuver,” mentioned Will Coogan, Blue Ghost’s chief engineer, in a video replace, referring to the step that places the lander on a moonbound trajectory. “During that period, we’re going to do a bunch of payload operations, continue with system checkouts, just make sure everything is precisely tuned before we do that.”
Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lunar lander captures Earth on the horizon from its prime deck, with the moon within the distant background.
Credit score: Firefly Aerospace
Firefly’s lander, initially scheduled to elevate off in late 2024, is the primary NASA Business Lunar Payload Providers mission of the yr. This system has invested $2.6 billion in contracts with distributors from the non-public sector to assist ship devices to the moon and ship again essential knowledge.
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The corporate is carrying 10 experiments for the area company. NASA desires to see a common cadence of moon missions to arrange for astronaut-led Artemis expeditions in 2027 or later.
As soon as Blue Ghost escapes Earth’s gravitational pull, it would take 4 days for it to reach on the moon. The spacecraft will spend 16 days in lunar orbit earlier than dropping to the floor, deliberate to occur on March 2. The descent is anticipated to final about one hour.
Watch this time-lapse video of Firefly’s Blue Ghost lander capturing Earth eclipsing the moon.
Final week, after flying some 715,000 miles, the crew accomplished take a look at runs on a NASA experiment dubbed SCALPSS, brief for Stereo Cameras for Lunar Plume-Floor Research. It’s going to observe the results of engine plumes on lunar soil.
As lunar journeys grow to be extra frequent, the area company desires to grasp the affect these landings may have on different shut autos and devices. Firefly efficiently acquired high-resolution pictures from all six of the SCALPSS cameras.
“It’s been kind of a perpetual grind. We’ve been working very hard to try and make this dream a reality,” Coogan mentioned. “The first images came down, and it forced everybody to pause and realize this thing we’ve been trying for, for all these years, is finally actually happening, and it’s working.”
The mission appears to be going easily up to now, however the crew hasn’t encountered the toughest half but. Touchdown on the moon is onerous. The moon’s exosphere offers nearly no drag to gradual a spacecraft down because it approaches the bottom. Moreover, there aren’t any GPS techniques on the moon to assist information a craft to its touchdown spot.
Thus far only one firm, Intuitive Machines, has made the journey all over lunar landing. Its craft landed sideways close to the moon’s south pole in February 2024, nonetheless managing to function from its awkward place.
