“We are on the moon!”: With these words the company Firefly Aerospace He celebrated the landing on our natural satellite of the probe Blue Ghost 1. It is the second private lander to be able to land on the moon, but the first in history to do it with full success. Blue Ghost 1, left on January 15, 2025, landed on Mare crisis The morning of March 2ndat 9:34 About Italian now, after 47 flight days. The probe sent the first breathtaking images of the surface of our satellite, of the lunar dawn and the earth seen from the selenic surface. There mission it is destined to last at least 14 days during which more than 10 scientific tools dedicated to the study of the environment and lunar interior. Firefly Aerospace has spread the video in HD which summarizes the last moments in detail before the hallunage in which the gases expelled from the engine that generate a cloud of lunar regolite powder that is rapidly rapidly due to the lack of atmosphere are visible.
There is also a bit of Italy In this mission: the probe hosts the instrument on board Luglious of the Italian Space Agency which has already established the record of the farthest GPS connection in history. In addition to studying the moon, the probe will allow us to Observe for the first time an eclipse of sun Directly from the moon: on March 13 there will be a total eclipse of the moon on Earth, a unique show not to be missed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nphheybjdxg
The objectives of the Blue Ghost private probe
The mission Blue Ghost It was developed by the American company Firefly Aerospace As part of the NASA CLPS program which aims to create one New space race guided by private companies. The goal is to make Blue Ghost one annual mission able to transport different types of loads on the lunar surface, depending on customer needs. You can imagine it as a sort of spatial courier For the moon! The Lander landed on the selenic surface Sunday 2 March, to 9:34 About the morning after a 45 -day trip. This is the first successful landing of a private Lader. A year ago, in fact, the Lander Odysseus of intuitive Machines managed to land, but tilted on one side, preventing the correct performance of the mission. The probe will have now 14 days of light Available to be able to conduct its scientific investigations and send us videos and breathtaking images from the lunar surface.
The first photos of the lunar surface of the Firefly Lander
After just under two days from the landing, Blue Ghost has already started sending breathtaking images with a lunar surface. The first image below shows the one that probably the first photo of andawn from the moon.
The second photo instead shows theShadow projected by the Lander On the barren lunar surface near the sea crisis, one of the lunar seas that appears from the earth to the edges of the lunar disc visible to us. In the photo it is visible also our dear planet Earth that precisely because of the position of the sea crisis appears enough bass on the horizon. Just as from the earth’s surface we see the moon phases, it is equally on the lunar surface. In the next few days the new images from Blue Ghost will show us the Earth phase decrease more and more to become a thin scythe. In addition, on March 13 on earth there will be a total eclipse of the moon. Since this happens when the earth comes to find itself between the moon and the sun, Blue Ghost will observe one for the first time in history Sun eclipses with a lunar surface!
Many tools on board, there is also an Italian one: Luglie
Blue Ghost is equipped with well 10 scientific toolswhich range from the study of the lunar environment to that of the interior of our satellite and the interaction of the earth’s magnetic field with the sun wind. Among the various tools there is also one proudly one Italian, Lugliousdeveloped by the Italian Space Agency, the first Italian tool active on our satellite. Luglie is a GPS receiver which works by connecting to the Galileo satellite network. The tool was correctly put in operation at 7:48 on March 4, when the First GPS signal of the story from the lunar surfacefrom a distance of 410,000 kilometers. Luglie aims to show how satellite navigation systems can also be used on the surface of the moon, not only on earth.
