Firefly’s blue ghost becomes the second private space with Luna landing

A private spacecraft has landed on the moon, becoming the second commercial vehicle to reach the lunar surface.

Blue Ghost Earth on January 15After being launched by the Firefly Aerospace of the United States.

The project is the last collaboration of the US Space Agency NASA and private companies.

Intuitive Machines, another firm, hopes to land its Athena spacecraft near the South Pole of the Moon in the next few days.

Intuitive was the first private company to achieve a lunar landing. Your spacecraft Odysseus arrived on the moon on February 22 last year.

However, the mission was shortly when the spacecraft landed on the slope of a crater, broke some landing train and collapsed.

The blue ghost landed softly, after being Orbiting the moon during the last two weeks.

The Firefly headquarters personnel in Texas exploded in cheers and applause when they were told that their landing was successful.

Dr. Simeon Barber, a planetary science researcher at the Open University, said Blue Ghost was essentially the first private company successful to the moon, since the vehicle was intact and receptive.

He told the BBC breakfast: “(They) have demonstrated a technology to land on the surface of the moon, of the guy who had been forgotten after the Apollo era when we had astronauts on the surface (lunar).”

The importance of the moon for many private companies, said Dr. Barber, was to use it as a launch platform to explore the rest of the space.

“When we go to the moon, we can learn to execute robotic instruments in space (and) in the really hard environment of the moon, which is sometimes hot, it is very dusty, there is a lot of radiation.”

He said that at some point it was likely that humans would return to the lunar surface and explained that he had gone a lot due to lack of funds.

The last time humans set foot on the moon was on December 19, 1972, During the Apollo 17 mission.

“Apollo’s missions had great success,” said Dr. Barber. “But they were missions of ‘touch and van’.

At that time, astronauts would be there for three days before having to leave again, since the costs were with the billions of dollars. “That is not sustainable,” he said.

Dr. Barber said that the belief now was that bringing private companies to the fold would help reduce costs as a result of commercial competition.

It could lead to higher terrifying and innovations that could extract resources from the moon, such as water for astronauts to drink.

The first private company to try to get to the Moon was another US firm. Astrobotic technology.

They tried to reach the Moon in January 2024, but their landing never reached the moon, due to a suspicion of fuel leakage, and crashed into the earth.

He The burning descent meant that the spacecraft was separated In his final moments before immersing himself in the South Pacific Ocean.