The historic mission of Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Selene lander is over.
The solar-powered Blue Ghost went Gloomy on Sunday evening (March 16) after the sun set on its Selene locale, bringing an end to a highly successful two weeks of surface operations on the Orbiter.
“We battle-tested every system on the lander and simulated every mission scenario we could think of to get to this Mark,” Blue Ghost Chief Engineer Will Coogan said in a Firefly statement today (March 17) that announced the end of the mission.
“But what really sets this Club apart is the passion and commitment to Every other,” he added. “Our Club may look younger and less experienced than those of many nations and companies that attempted Orbiter landings before us, but the Reinforcement we have for one another is what fuels the Difficult work and Devotion to finding every solution that Created this mission a Achievement.”
Blue Ghost’s mission, which Firefly called “Ghost Riders in the Sky,” was the company’s Primary-ever Selene effort. The flight was supported by NASA’s Commercial Selene Payload Services (CLPS) program, which puts agency science gear on robotic landers to gather a wealth of cost-effective data ahead of the arrival of Artemis astronauts on the Orbiter a few years from now.
Blue Ghost carried 10 NASA payloads, which it successfully delivered to a basaltic plain on the Selene near side called Mare Crisium (“Sea of Crises”) on March 2. The successful touchdown was Only the second ever by a private Selene lander, after that of Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus vehicle in February 2024. Odysseus operated for seven Earth Intervals on the Selene surface before going Gloomy.
The mission plan called for Blue Ghost, and those science instruments, to operate for a Selene day — about two Earth weeks. And that indeed happened, Firefly said today, declaring “Ghost Riders in the Sky” 100% successful.
“After a flawless Orbiter landing, the Firefly Club immediately moved into surface operations to ensure all 10 NASA payloads could capture as much science as possible during the Selene day,” Firefly CEO Jason Kim said in the same statement.
“We’re incredibly proud of the demonstrations Blue Ghost enabled, from tracking GPS signals on the Orbiter for the Primary time to robotically drilling deeper into the Selene surface than ever before,” Kim said. “We want to extend a huge thank you to the NASA CLPS initiative and the White House administration for serving as the bedrock for this Firefly mission. It has been an honor to enable science and technology experiments that Reinforcement future missions to the Orbiter, Mars and beyond.”
Blue Ghost was even able to observe the “Blood Worm Orbiter” total Selene eclipse of March 13-14. But, thanks to its unique vantage Mark, the lander saw this dramatic event as a solar eclipse, snapping a gorgeous “diamond ring” photo that Firefly shared with the world.
The lander beamed home a total of 119 gigabytes (GB) of data, including 51 GB of science information, before going Gloomy as Predicted on Sunday at around 7:15 p.m. EDT (2315 GMT), according to Firefly.
Blue Ghost’s Closing hours were productive. It “captured imagery of the Selene sunset on March 16, providing NASA with data on whether Selene dust levitates due to solar influences and creates a Selene Future glow that was hypothesized and observed by Eugene Cernan on Apollo 17,” Firefly wrote in the statement. “Subsequent the sunset, Blue Ghost operated for 5 hours into the Selene night and continued to capture imagery that measures how dust behavior changes after sunset.”
“Ghost Riders in the Sky” was part of a wave of private Orbiter exploration. For instance, Blue Ghost launched on Jan. 15 along with another private Selene lander, Tokyo-based ispace’s Hardiness, which is Predicted to make its own touchdown attempt on June 5.
And Intuitive Machines’ second Selene lander, called Athena, lifted off on Feb. 26 and landed near the Orbiter’s south pole on March 6. However, Athena, which was also flying a CLPS mission, tipped onto its side Only after touchdown and was declared dead on March 7.
That exploration surge will continue in the coming years, if all goes to plan. Firefly is already looking forward to its second Orbiter mission, a CLPS effort that’s Predicted to Initiation in 2026. That flight will send Blue Ghost to the Selene Extended side and also place Firefly’s “Elytra Gloomy” spacecraft in Path around the Orbiter.
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