Firefly Aerospace Will Soon Attempt To Land On The Moon
Firefly Aerospace is one of many companies within the space industry working hard to develop, manufacture, and achieve the impressive milestone of reaching orbit. While working on this goal, the private company is also looking at other options and working with agencies such as NASA. This has led them to an upcoming mission to the Moon.
Not long ago Firefly Aerospace announced they successfully completed NASA’s Critical Design Review of its Blue Ghost lunar lander. This puts the company on schedule for a mission to the Moon in September of 2023. Here the company alongside NASA is attempting to deliver a suite of ten payloads to the lunar surface by the middle of the year.
While very ambitious, Firefly Aerospace has shown impressive progress helping make the upcoming mission a success. Thanks to a mission award price close to $100 million, Firefly has had access to the necessary resources to make this mission a reality. Even with this award price, successfully landing on the surface of the Moon is an immensely difficult process that few agencies have done. Here I will go more in-depth into what exactly the mission entails and Firefly’s overall progress.
Recent Update
Around 5 months ago in October of 2021, Firefly Aerospace announced it reached a major milestone with the successful completion of the Critical Design Review, or (CDR) of their Blue Ghost lunar lander. This CDR is intended to pave the way for the construction of the Blue Ghost lander, which is scheduled to touch down in the Mare Crisium lunar basin in September of 2023, carrying ten NASA payloads as part of the $93.3-million Commercial Lunar Payload Services, (CLPS) contract secured by Firefly in early 2021. The lander will also take several commercial payloads to the lunar surface. The 2023 Blue Ghost mission will be the first of what are expected to be yearly lunar surface missions for Firefly. Dr. Tom Markusic, Firefly’s CEO mentioned, “This milestone marks another step in an aggressive schedule and meeting it continues to showcase our spacecraft team’s ability to consistently deliver incredible work”. He went on to point out that “This mission is a forerunner of what we see as a growing cadence of recurring data and payload service missions in cis-lunar space that will kickstart a lunar economy, and we’re honored to be demonstrating our ability to deliver these services for NASA and for our commercial customers.” Blue Ghost will operate a variety of payloads through lunar transit and orbit, as well as while on the lunar surface.
These payloads will explore the region’s regolith properties, geophysical characteristics, and interaction of the solar wind and the Earth’s magnetic field. There are also several key technology demonstrations related to navigation and sample collection. “The Firefly team is greatly humbled by the confidence external reviewers have shown in our lander and mission plan, in addition to the sign-off on this milestone completion by NASA. Our team has steadfastly driven to remain on schedule while producing the best product and plan in the face of both a global pandemic and the associated supply chain challenges,” said Dr. William Coogan, Blue Ghost Chief Engineer. “Every day I have the pleasure of working with some of the most creative people in the industry, who believe in the importance of this mission and who work together to make it a reality.” Mare Crisium has been the subject of previous lunar missions including the Soviet landers Luna 15, Luna 23, and Luna 24. In 2012, the NASA GRAIL mission confirmed and mapped a mass concentration at the center of the basin. This mission is meant to be a new and unique opportunity to learn and gather more information that can be applied to future missions and more. In addition, on Twitter Firefly Aerospace said, “We are one step closer to landing on the Moon! After successfully completing @NASA’s Critical Design Review (CDR), our Blue Ghost lunar lander is on schedule for a September 2023 landing in Mare Crisium. Congrats BG team!” Its clear Firefly Aerospace is very excited and making great progress on the mission.
Mission Goal
Now that you have an update surrounding Firefly’s progress, we can take a closer look at what exactly this mission entails. As I mentioned prior, this lander is carrying ten payloads and is a part of an award from NASA with a price close to $100 million. These Payloads will operate using lander-provided data and power resources through an entire lunar day and beyond lunar dusk in Mare Crisium. The capabilities of the Blue Ghost lander exceed those needed to complete the missions of the NASA-sponsored Payloads. Firefly Aerospace plans to use these additional capabilities for more Moon opportunities in the future. One of the first benefits of this lander includes the landing site options. Nearly any landing site on the near side of the Moon is achievable with their lander, including the lunar poles. Firefly’s baseline lunar capture orbit is near-polar, providing access to any surface location. The other important feature revolves around more than just delivering payloads. Firefly’s lunar lander is built to support payloads for an extended duration once on the Moon. This opens up more opportunities for different companies and customers.
Not to mention Firefly Aerospace has put a lot of time and effort into providing high-quality features such as power, telecommunications, thermal control, deployment, payload operation, and more. Looking at Firefly Aerospace as a company, you may wonder why they are working on future missions to the Moon so early in the company’s lifetime. They highlight this goal and future endeavor as the lunar vision. Here they highlight that “Recognizing the importance of the Moon to the future plans of both the US government and commercial industry, we are leading a number of efforts to develop a future lunar architecture supporting advanced lunar surface capabilities.” Firefly aerospace is very confident in the future of the Moon and the market which requires a lander and more to get there. They plan to use the Beta launch vehicle, which will permit a dedicated Trans-Lunar Injection launch for Blue Ghost, as well as for other landers of similar size, increasing launch flexibility and PL mass to the lunar surface. This vertically integrated capability from the surface of the Earth to the surface of the Moon will uniquely position Firefly in terms of ability to control schedule and prevent delays. The Beta vehicle is expected to be available for lunar missions beginning in 2024. Firefly Aerospace has very ambitious plans for the future, however, plans like these help companies innovate and make progress in the space industry.
Conclusion
Firefly Aerospace is a decent size company that is early in development. They recently had the first orbital test flight of their Alpha launch vehicle. While it was not a full success, it provided important data that Firefly will use to improve the design and make future missions reach orbit and beyond. Not only this but the company has been hard at work developing a lunar lander for future missions to the Moon. After winning a contract from NASA, they were awarded close to $100 million for the mission. Not long ago Firefly Aerospace provided an update and highlighted they were making good progress. We will have to wait and see if Firefly makes the deadline and the impact it has on the space industry.