An image taken from the top deck of Firefly Aerospace’s lunar lander of the Moon in the distance. Credit: Firefly Aerospace
NASA’s science and technology instruments aboard Firefly’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 are a step closer to the Moon. After almost two weeks in Earth orbit, Firefly announced Thursday that Blue Ghost successfully completed its second engine burn, placing the lander in the correct position to leave Earth’s orbit and continue its journey to the Moon. At the same time, the spacecraft got its first glimpse of the Moon from Earth’s orbit.
NASA’s Artemis blogwill continue to provide updates on this lunar delivery. Additional mission updates can also be found on Firefly’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 page.
Firefly’s Blue Ghost continues its journey to the Moon carrying 10 NASA science and technology instruments. Four days into the mission, the lunar lander completed its first main engine burn. This milestone is the first of several maneuvers that will position the lander in a trajectory towards the Moon. After 25 days orbiting Earth, Blue Ghost will continue its four-day journey to lunar orbit and orbit the Moon for 16 days before it begins descent operations to the lunar surface as part of NASA’s Artemis campaign.
Jointly developed by NASA and the Italian Space Agency, the Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment (LuGRE) technology demonstration acquired Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) signals, and calculated a navigation fix at nearly 52 Earth radii: more than 205,674 miles (331,000 kilometers) from Earth’s surface. This achievement suggests that Earth-based GNSS constellations can be used for navigation at nearly 90% of the distance to the Moon, an Earth-Moon signal distance record. It also demonstrates the power of using multiple GNSS constellations together, such as GPS and Galileo, to perform navigation. Throughout its journey, LuGRE will continue expanding our knowledge of Earth-based navigation systems in space as it acquires and tracks signals on its way to the Moon, during lunar orbit, and for up to two weeks on the lunar surface.
During this Earth transit phase, the Firefly mission team has continued to ensure the spacecraft remains healthy. The most recent visuals from space include footage of Earth eclipsing the Sun.
As the 45–day transit to the Moon continues, follow NASA’sArtemis blog for agency science and tech updates aboard Blue Ghost Mission 1, and Firefly’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 page for additional operational updates.
NASA, SpaceX, and Firefly Aerospace are targeting 1:11 a.m. EST Wednesday, Jan. 15, for the launch of Firefly’s Blue Ghost Mission 1, the next delivery to the Moon through NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative.
The Blue Ghost lander will launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The flight will deliver 10 NASA science instruments and technology demonstrations to the lunar surface, to further our understanding of the Moon and help prepare for future human missions.
As part of the agency’s Artemis campaign, NASA is working with multiple U.S. companies to deliver science and technology to the Moon for the benefit of humanity.
Intergration of the crew and service modules for the Artemis II Orion spacecraft was recently completed at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Photo credit: NASA
On Oct. 19, the Orion crew and service modules for the Artemis II mission were joined together inside the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
After successfully completing hardware installations and testing over the past several months, engineers connected the two major components of Orion that will fly NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, along with CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen on a mission around the Moon and bring them home safely.
Now that the crew and service modules are integrated, the team will power up the combined crew and service module for the first time. After power on tests are complete, Orion will begin altitude chamber testing, which will put the spacecraft through conditions as close as possible to the environment it will experience in the vacuum of deep space.
Engineers and technicians from NASA, Aerojet Rocketdyne, and Boeing at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans have installed all four RS-25 engines to the core stage for NASA’s Space Launch System rocket that will help power the first crewed Artemis mission to the Moon. The yellow core stage is seen in a horizontal position in the final assembly area at Michoud. The engines are arranged at the bottom of the rocket stage in a square pattern, like legs on a table. Photo Credit: NASA/Eric Bordelon
Teams at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans have structurally joined all four RS-25 engines onto the core stage for NASA’s Artemis II Moon rocket. The flight test is the agency’s first crewed mission under Artemis.
Technicians added the first engine to NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket core stage Sept. 11. Teams installed the second engine onto the stage Sept. 15 with the third and fourth engines Sept. 19 and Sept. 20. Technicians with NASA, Aerojet Rocketdyne, an L3Harris Technologies company and the RS-25 engines lead contractor, along with Boeing, the core stage lead contractor, now will focus efforts on the complex task of fully securing the engines to the stage and integrating the propulsion and electrical systems within the structure.
The SLS core stage, at 212 feet, is the backbone of the Moon rocket. Its two huge propellant tanks provide more than 733,000 gallons of super-chilled liquid propellant to the four RS-25 engines, while the stage’s flight computers, avionics, and electrical systems act as the “brains” of the rocket. During Artemis II, the RS-25 engines will together provide more than 2 million pounds of thrust for eight minutes of flight, helping to send the Artemis II crew beyond low-Earth orbit to venture around the Moon.
NASA is working to land the first woman and first person of color on the Moon under Artemis. SLS is part of NASA’s backbone for deep space exploration, along with Orion and the Gateway in orbit around the Moon, and commercial human landing systems. SLS is the only rocket that can send Orion, astronauts, and supplies to the Moon in a single mission.
Artemis II crew members, shown inside the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, check out their Orion crew module on Aug. 8, 2023. From left are: Victor Glover, pilot; Reid Wiseman, commander; Christina Hammock Koch, mission specialist; and Jeremy Hansen, mission specialist. The crew module is undergoing acoustic testing ahead of integration with the European Service Module. Artemis II is the first crewed mission on NASA’s path to establishing a long-term lunar presence for science and exploration under Artemis. Photo credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett
On Aug. 13, engineers and technicians inside the high bay of the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida successfully completed a series of acoustic tests to ensure the Orion spacecraft for NASA’s Artemis II mission can withstand the speed and vibration it will experience during launch and throughout the 10-day mission around the Moon, the first Artemis mission with astronauts.
During the testing, engineers surrounded the crew module with large stacks of speakers, and attached microphones, accelerometers, and other equipment to measure the effects of different acoustic levels. Engineers and technicians will now analyze the data collected during the tests.
Prior to testing, the four Artemis II astronauts visited the high bay and viewed their ride to the Moon. With this test complete, technicians at Kennedy are on track to integrate Orion’s crew and service modules this fall.
With the success of NASA’s Artemis I launch, the previously unexplored shadowy regions near the lunar South Pole where Artemis astronauts will land in 2025, are more within our reach than ever before.
One instrument that will support these future lunar exploration efforts is a hypersensitive optical camera called ShadowCam. ShadowCam is one of six instruments on board the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI)’s Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter, known as Danuri, which launched in August 2022 and entered lunar orbit last December.
Previous cameras in lunar orbit were designed to acquire images of sunlit surfaces. Developed by Malin Space Science Systems and Arizona State University, ShadowCam’s primary function is to collect images within permanently shadowed regions near the lunar poles. These areas never receive direct sunlight and are thought to contain water ice – a significant resource for exploration that can be used as fuel or oxygen and for other habitation applications.
Building on cameras developed for NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, ShadowCam is 200 times more light-sensitive and is therefore able to capture detailed images within permanently shadowed regions – even in the absence of direct light – by using the light that is reflected off nearby geologic features such as mountains or the walls of craters.
Images of the permanently shadowed wall and floor of Shackleton Crater captured by Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) (left) and ShadowCam (right). Each panel shows an area that is 5,906 feet (1,800 meters) wide and 7,218 feet (2,200 meters) tall. Image Credit: NASA/KARI/ASU
In addition to mapping the light reflected by permanently shadowed regions to search for evidence of ice deposits, ShadowCam will also observe seasonal changes and measure the terrain inside the craters, all in service of science and future lunar exploration efforts. The high-resolution images could help scientists learn more about how the Moon has evolved, how water is trapped and preserved in permanently shadowed regions, and could help inform site selection and exploration planning for Artemis missions.
Since Danuri entered lunar orbit, ShadowCam has been in an operational checkout period, during which it has been collecting dozens of images of the lunar polar regions, including an image of Shackleton Crater, to calibrate and test its functionality. Following this checkout period, which will conclude later this month, ShadowCam will start its campaign to capture images of shadowed terrain as Danuri routinely passes over them during the planned mission of 11 months.
The CAPSTONE mission operations team confirmed that NASA’s CAPSTONE spacecraft arrived at its orbit at the Moon Sunday evening. The CubeSat completed an initial orbit insertion maneuver, firing its thrusters to put the spacecraft into orbit, at 7:39 p.m. EST.
CAPSTONE is now in a near-rectilinear halo orbit, or NRHO. This particular NRHO is the same orbit that will be used by Gateway, the Moon-orbiting space station that will support NASA’s Artemis missions. CAPSTONE is the first spacecraft to fly an NRHO, and the first CubeSat to operate at the Moon.
In the next five days, CAPSTONE will perform two additional clean-up maneuvers to refine its orbit. After these maneuvers, the team will review data to confirm that CAPSTONE remains on track in the NRHO.
NASA’s Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE) successfully completed its third trajectory correction maneuver (TCM) on Monday. CAPSTONE is taking a long but fuel-efficient route to the Moon, flying about 958,000 miles (1.54 million kilometers) from Earth before looping back around to its near rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO).
At the completion of the maneuver, CAPSTONE was about 780,000 miles (1.25 million kilometers) from Earth and was moving at about 595 miles per hour (about 267 meters per second). CAPSTONE will perform several such maneuvers during its journey to lunar orbit to refine its trajectory to the Moon.
CAPSTONE remains on track to arrive to its lunar orbit on Nov. 13.
Read more about CAPSTONE’s ambitious mission to the Moon.
NASA’s Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment (CAPSTONE) successfully completed its second trajectory correction maneuver starting at about 11:30 a.m. EDT Tuesday.
CAPSTONE will perform several such maneuvers during its four-month-long journey to lunar orbit to refine its trajectory to the Moon, with the next one targeted for late July. CAPSTONE is taking a long but fuel-efficient route to the Moon, flying about 958,000 miles (1.54 million kilometers) from Earth before looping back around to its near rectilinear halo orbit.
Read more about CAPSTONE’s ambitious mission to the Moon.
