El aterrizaje exitoso del Lander fantasma azul de Firefly en la luna
The initial Firefly Aerospace test to land on the moon was a success. Working with NASA, the company announced on Sunday morning that their Blue Ghost spacecraft had easily reached the moon and was standing upright, communicating with the team back home. Blue Ghost landed at 3:34 am in a region known as the Grand Crisium. While Firefly’s spacecraft was not the first commercial spacecraft to land on the moon, it was the first to land successfully and autonomously on the moon last year, after a faster descent than planned.
Blue Ghost and the NASA instruments it carries are expected to operate on lunar soil for approximately 14 days. After that, the lunar night will begin. If all goes according to plan, the lander will capture lead images the next month and a few hours after darkness falls, obtaining high-definition images of a total eclipse, the monthly sunset, and other moments to document lunar dust behavior. NASA is also testing tools that can drill and collect samples from the surface.
Firefly’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 was launched on January 15 and reached lunar orbit approximately a month later. The team has already sent over 27 GB of data to Earth from their journey. «Just passing by the moon, the Firefly Mission has already provided most of the scientific data so far for the NASA CLPS initiative,» said Shea Ferring, Firefly’s Chief Technology Officer, in a statement, mentioning that the most challenging part of the mission is over. In addition, the company shared a photo showing the shadow of the lander on the lunar surface after its success and joked, «Lander saw it, another 2 weeks of operations!»
This article originally appeared on Engadget in.
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