It’s been one week since the Firefly Aerospace Blue Ghost mission launched on its journey to the moon, carrying NASA payloads and aiming to make the second ever commercial soft lunar landing. During this week, the spacecraft captured a gorgeous view of a solar eclipse seen from space, and now it has captured an even more impressive visual: our planet Earth, as seen from a distance of 4,000 miles away.
“Firefly captured the beauty of our home planet during another Earth orbit burn,” Firefly Aerospace wrote in a mission update, sharing the image above. “This second engine burn (and first critical burn) adjusted Blue Ghost’s apogee (the furthest point from Earth) using our Spectre RCS thrusters. With just over two weeks left in Earth orbit before our Trans Lunar Injection, the Firefly team will continue operating our NASA payloads onboard and capturing science data along the way.”
In addition to the photo, the team also shared this video taken during the second engine burn, showing the Earth retreating as the spacecraft burns away from it:
The spacecraft will now spend a little over two further weeks in orbit around Earth, gradually adjusting its trajectory until it performs a maneuver called a trans lunar injection, after which it will head on a four-day journey toward the moon on a path called a lunar transit. Once it arrives at the moon it will have to enter lunar orbit, performing a maneuver called a lunar orbit injection, then it will spend 16 days orbiting the moon before attempting a landing on the moon’s surface.
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Despite the fact that the Apollo missions saw men on the moon over 50 years ago, lunar landings remain challenging. The moon’s surface is covered in rocks and boulders, and has many areas which have slopes and craters that make landing difficult. The first commercial lunar landing, performing by Intuitive Machines last year, had problems as the lander came down at an angle and ended up somewhat on its side, having tipped when a foot caught on the surface. This lander was still able to collect science data, but due to its angle it could only collect a small amount of solar power and its operations on the surface lasted just a few Earth days.
Firefly Aerospace will be hoping for a smoother landing operation, and will be using technology similar to that used for landing rovers on Mars called terrain relative navigation, in which on-board computers use images of the terrain below to select an appropriate landing site.
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