After a two-week scientific experiment mission, the “Blue Ghost” lunar lander of Firefly Aerospace ran out of power last weekend, marking the successful completion of the first private lunar lander mission.
On the moon, when the sun sets and no longer provides energy to the lander’s solar panels, the lunar lander continued to operate in the dark for five hours as planned before the power ran out, signifying the end of the mission.
Late Sunday night, Jason Kim, CEO of Firefly Aerospace, posted on social media platform X, saying, “The mission has been completed… but this Blue Ghost still lives on in our hearts, thank it for the journey it brought us!”
Before shutting down on Sunday evening, the lunar lander operated as planned for five hours in the moonlit night. Kim stated that photos of the moon’s sunset and twilight will be released on Tuesday.
On January 15, the “Blue Ghost” was launched from Cape Canaveral as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. It landed on Mare Crisium in the northeast of the moon’s front side on March 2.
Carrying ten NASA technological instruments to the moon, it captured and transmitted back the first lunar image after a successful landing.
Firefly Aerospace confirmed on Monday that all ten experiments were running smoothly.
Last week, the “Blue Ghost” witnessed a lunar eclipse from the moon, also known as a total lunar eclipse when viewed from Earth.
Based in Texas, Firefly Aerospace became the first private company to successfully land on the moon without any lander malfunctions.
The Japanese company ispace’s Resilience lunar lander, which rode the same SpaceX rocket as the “Blue Ghost,” will take a longer route to reach the moon. Its goal is to land on the moon in early June.
Another Texas-based company, Intuitive Machines, saw its lunar lander crash on its side in a crater near the lunar south pole earlier this month, leading to the mission’s failure.
Currently, only the United States, Russia, China, India, and Japan have successfully landed on the moon.
Firefly Aerospace is already developing the next lunar lander and plans to land on the moon annually.
(Reference: Associated Press)