Private Moonlander to go silent two weeks into moon mission

The Light out The first private Lunar Lander A completely successful moon mission.

Firefly Air Space Blue Ghost Lander We were silent over the weekend to close out NASA’s two-week science experiment. The end came when the moon sets, but no longer provides energy Lander’s solar panels.

“The mission is complete,” Firefly CEO Jason Kim said late Sunday night via X. “But the ghosts still live in our hearts and minds.

Lander was open for five hours on a moonlit night, as planned before his death on Sunday evening. Photos of the moon sunset and glow will be released on Tuesday, Kim said.

Blue Ghost was launched by Cape Canaveral in January as part of NASA’s commercial monthly distribution program. It landed on March 2nd at the northeastern edge of the moon. Carrying drills, vacuums and other scientific and technical equipment for NASA. Firefly confirmed on Monday that all 10 experiments worked.

Later last week, Blue Ghost observed a solar eclipse of the total sun from the moon. This is a total lunar eclipse, as seen from the Earth.

Texas-based Firefly has become the first private company to land on the moon without falling or crashing after a series of failed missions by other companies over the past few years. Only five countries in the US, Russia, China, India and Japan have successfully landed.

The lunar lander of the Japanese company shared the SpaceX Rocket Ride, but took an even longer route to reach the moon. That Lander from Ispace is targeting a touchdown in early June.

Another Texas company, an intuitive machine, lay down in a crater near the moon’s Antarctic earlier this month, dooming the mission. This was the second imperfect mission for the intuitive machine. That first Lander brought the US back to the moon for the first time since the Apollo era after a perfect landing that hindered communication last year.

Firefly is already working on the next moon lander, and is striving to land one lunar a year.