A LUNAR lander has touched down on the surface of the moon in the first “fully successful” landing by a private space craft.
Firefly’s “Blue Ghost” has touched down on the slopes of an ancient volcano on the moon’s surface – to a champagne toast from Nasa chiefs.
A shot of the Firefly Blue Ghost lunar lander orbiting the moon[/caption]
A shot of the moon’s south pole taken by Firefly as it made it pre-landing orbit[/caption]
Employees at the company cheered, hugged and screamed as the landing was confirmed from 360,000km away – just outside Austin, Texas.
The HQ reported: “We’re on the moon,” and said the lander was stable at around 8:30am British time.
There has been one commercial lander on the moon before – but it fell over as it touched down.
A lander called Odysseus, made by Houston-based company Intuitive Machines, made a lopsided soft touchdown last year.
Nasa has hailed the achievement, with Joel Kearn, one of the agency’s space mission directors, saying: “They made it look easy. It’s not easy.”
Nicky Fox, another director, said: “It’s just an amazing, amazing achievement. I’m so proud of everyone in this room, because you all had a part in putting this lander on the moon.”
The hosts of the Blue Ghost webcast declared that Firefly “just became the first commercial company in history to complete a fully successful” moon touchdown.
Whilst the lander was built by a private company, it will be used by Nasa to carry out experiments.
It is carrying a drill, a vacuum and other kit to help us learn more about the lunar landscape.
The vacuum will suck up moon dust by creating a “small tornado”, according to Nasa.
The agency said: “If successful, material from the dust cloud it creates then will be funnelled into a transfer tube” and “collected in a sample container”.
Firefly received $101million from Nasa for carrying out the mission.
Blue Ghost will spend most of its time basking in sunlight, using its two solar panels to power the lander and its instruments.
But – after two weeks – night will fall, and temperatures will plunge to minus 170 degrees Celsuis.
Mission control room monitoring the Firefly landing[/caption]
Usually, darkness spells the end of lunar landing missions, but Blue Ghost hopes to remain active for a few hours.
Jason Kim, Firefly CEO, told CNN: “There’s five hours at the end of the 14 days where we’ll be performing operations into the lunar night and really test the limits of the system.”
Two of the onboard instruments will study the moon’s soil and the temperatures below the surface.
And Nasa has attached camera to analyse the plumes of dirt kicked up by the landing engine, which will help scientists understand how the dirt will be disturbed with heaving landing missions.
Mission leaders took to the stage to lead a champagne toast.
The Blue Ghost lander being launched by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket[/caption]
The trail left by the SpaceX rocket as it flew off into space with Blue Ghost[/caption]
Fox commented on how composed the Firefly team remained throughout.
She said: “There was no panic. It was amazing — just everyone was calm, everyone was disciplined.
“Everybody knew exactly what they were doing. No one had any doubt that we were going to land on the moon tonight.”
An official statement from Firefly this morning reads: “As part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, Firefly’s Blue Ghost Mission 1, named Ghost Riders in the Sky, sets the tone for the future of exploration across cislunar space as the first commercial company in history to achieve a fully successful Moon landing.”
The modern moon landing race
By Patrick Harrington, foreign news reporter
The competition between nations to put landers on the moon is hotting up, with China, the US, Russia and Japan all vying to make historic breakthroughs.
The first commercial lander on the moon was Houston-based Intuitive Machines’ IM-1 mission last year.
That was deemed a success but the spacecraft tipped over – meaning it could not operate for as long as was hoped.
There have also been government funded missions.
In June last year, China completed the world’s first mission to land on dark side of the moon with its Chang’e-6 lunar probe.
In 2023, India made history by becoming the first country to land on the moon’s south pole.
Just days before that, Russia had attempted a South Pole touchdown, which ended in a crash landing.
