Blue Ghost: Mission Accomplished

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Image (Credit): Blue Ghost’s shadow on the lunar surface with the Earth on the horizon.(Firefly Aerospace)

NASA and Firefly Aerospace plan to have a news conference tomorrow at 2pm to discuss the end of the Blue Ghost mission on the Moon. The lunar lander set down on March 2. It began its mission immediately, knowing the disappearance of the Sun on March 16 would mark the end its work.

Those speaking at tomorrow’s news conference are:

  • Joel Kearns, deputy associate administrator for exploration, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters in Washington;
  • Jason Kim, CEO, Firefly Aerospace;
  • Ray Allensworth, spacecraft program director, Firefly; and
  • Adam Schlesinger, Commercial Lunar Payload Services project manager, NASA Johnson.

In a press release earlier today, Firefly stated:

Firefly Aerospace…today announced it met 100 percent of its mission objectives for Blue Ghost Mission 1 after performing the first fully successful commercial Moon landing on March 2, completing more than 14 days of surface operations (346 hours of daylight), and operating just over 5 hours into the lunar night with the final data received around 6:15 pm CDT on March 16. This achievement marks the longest commercial operations on the Moon to date.

After a number of issues with the first commercial missions, this is very good news.

A Different Take on the Lunar Eclipse

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): The March 14, 2025 total lunar eclipse as seen from the Moon’s surface thanks to Firefly’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 lunar lander. (Firefly Aerospace)

If you were lucky enough to capture the total lunar eclipse last Friday, you are lucky. However, the image above shows a very different view of the event from an even luckier little craft on the Moon’s surface. That’s right, Firefly’s Blue Ghost lunar lander took a moment away from its work to snap this amazing image of a solar eclipse caused by the Earth blocking to Sun’s light.

The future should bring more craft and even humans to the lunar surface, which will provide many more amazing images of our floating blue marble.

A Very Mixed Week in Space

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): One of the last images of the eighth Starship flight on Thursday right before the rocket exploded. (SpaceX)

Let’s start with the good news. This past week two U.S. commercial space companies put landers on the Moon. Both Firefly’s Blue Ghost and Intuitive Machines’ Athena are now residents of the Moon. This is a terrific accomplishment for these relatively new players.

Now the bad news. Athena landed incorrectly and cannot carry out its mission. In fact, it died after only one day on the lunar surface. In addition, the Lunar Trailblazer that accompanied Athena on this mission with plans to orbit and map the Moon also appears to be a lost cause. And finally, SpaceX’s eighth test of its Starship ended with a fiery explosion over the Caribbean, much like its seventh test.

Add to this the potential dismantling of NASA should rumors of a 50 percent cut be true, and you have a very mixed week with too little good news (much like the stock market).

One common element in at least two of the stories – Starship explosion and NASA cuts – relates to Mr. Musk. One wonders whether more attention to SpaceX and less time ransacking the federal government might have led to better outcomes this week. I’m not a rocket scientist, but that seems to make some sense to me.

Pic of the Week: Athena Lands on Moon

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Athena approaching the Moon on March 6, 2025. (NASA)

This week’s image is from earlier today when Intuitive Machines’ Athena lunar lander was approaching the Moon’s South Pole. The good news is that the lander made it safely to the surface. However, the lunar lander may have landed in an odd way, creating solar generating issues similar to the company’s first attempt at landing this time last year.

NASA and Intuitive Machines are still trying to determine the status of the lander as well as its exact location. The lander’s goal was to land in Mons Mouton, a lunar plateau near the Moon’s South Pole. NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter should help to pinpoint the lander’s location and orientation in the next few days.

Hopefully, some if not all of the planned experiments are still possible. But for now it’s just a matter of waiting for more news on the mission.

Space Quote: Lunar Trailblazer Mission May be Over Before it Started

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Image (Credit): Artist’s rendering of NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer orbiting the Moon. (NASA)

“The Lunar Trailblazer team has been working around the clock to re-establish communications with the spacecraft…NASA sends up high-risk, high-reward missions like Lunar Trailblazer to do incredible science at a lower cost, and the team truly encapsulates the NASA innovative spirit — if anyone can bring Lunar Trailblazer back, it is them.”

-Statement by Nicky Fox, the associate administrator of the NASA Science Mission Directorate, as quoted by CNET. The Lunar Trailblazer was launched with Intuitive Machines’ Athena lunar lander on March 26th. The satellite was designed to orbit about 60 miles above the Moon’s surface as it mapped potential water on the lunar surface.