The Blue Ghost's lunar lander has captured a sunrise on the moon and other stunning images after its successful touchdown on the lunar surface early on Sunday morning (Mar. 2).
Blue Ghost landed in an enormous basin in the northeastern part of the moon's near-side at 3:34 a.m. EST, NASA announced in a statement. The space agency is working with commercial space exploration company Firefly Aerospace, which is leading the mission, to learn more about the moon and test new technologies on the lunar surface for future space exploration. Blue Ghost is only the second private lunar lander ever to park on the moon, after Intuitive Machines' Odysseus craft touched down in Feb. 2024.
After Blue Ghost's successful landing, Firefly Aerospace CEO Jason Kim said in a statement that Firefly was "literally and figuratively over the Moon." Blue Ghost Mission 1 to the moon, or "Ghost Riders in the Sky," is the first of Firefly's three planned missions to our nearest celestial neighbor that will run until 2028.
"With annual lunar missions, Firefly is paving the way for a lasting lunar presence that will help unlock access to the rest of the solar system for our nation, our partners, and the world," Kim said.
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Blue Ghost launched from the NASA Kennedy Space Center on Jan. 15. The mission previously captured a trove of photos on its way to the moon. The latest snaps come after Blue Ghost made its landing inside Mare Crisium, a lunar basin more than 480 kilometers (300 miles) wide, according to the NASA statement.
Despite reaching the moon a full year after Intuitive Machines' Odysseues lander, Firefly Aerospace claimed it's the first commercial company to "successfully land on the moon" after Blue Ghost softly touched down and still stands upright and stable. Last year, Odysseus ended up face-planting the moon while snapping one of its legs in the process. (This stumbled landing only partially affected the mission's success, Live Science previously reported.) Intuitive Machines aims to return to the moon with its Athena lander on Thursday (Mar. 6), Live Science's sister site Space.com reported.
Firefly Aerospace and Intuitive Machines are part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. NASA has said that by working with American companies it is supporting the creation of a "lunar economy" that will help prepare for the next generation of space explorers.
Blue Ghost has 10 NASA instruments in its lander that will operate on the moon's surface for about 14 Earth days (one lunar day). NASA technology will test subsurface drilling equipment, deep sample collection, radiation tolerant computing and more, according to the space agency.
"The science and technology we send to the Moon now helps prepare the way for future NASA exploration and long-term human presence to inspire the world for generations to come," Nicky Fox, an associate administrator at NASA, said in the statement.
Moon quiz: What do you know about our nearest celestial neighbor?
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