Firefly Aerospace Will Soon Attempt To Land On The Moon
Not long ago Firefly Aerospace completed a significant milestone with the second ever launch of the Alpha rocket. While exciting, the company is working on more than just reaching low Earth orbit, including an upcoming mission to the Moon. In recent weeks we have seen some more updates on this project and exactly what Firefly has been working on.
Specifically, the third payload for the company’s Blue Ghost lunar lander was just delivered and fit checked. This is one of 10 payloads apart of the NASA sponsored mission that Blue Ghost is expected to not only land on the surface but support once there. With the mission scheduled to land in 2024, Firefly is all hands on deck preparing the lander for what’s to come.
Considering the company just reached orbit for the first time only months ago, a Moon mission is very ambitious. Not to mention the fact that Firefly is also in the process of ramping up its launch cadence with Alpha. Here I will go more in-depth into the recent Moon mission progress, why it’s so important, what to expect in the future, and more.
Recent Updates
Almost two years ago in February 2021, it was announced that NASA had awarded Firefly $93.3 million to deliver a suite of ten NASA-sponsored science and technology demonstration payloads to Mare Crisium in the Moon’s Crisium basin. Since then, the company has been making progress on this ambitious mission. Just a few weeks ago on November 20th the company tweeted saying, “Lunar Milestone: Payload No. 3 for Blue Ghost Mission 1 has been delivered & fit checked! @AegisAero’s Regolith Adherence Characterization (RAC) will determine how lunar regolith sticks to various materials to protect spacecraft, spacesuits & habitats from abrasion.” This included images of the team inside the cleanroom working with the payload. Next, on December 1st, NASA tweeted mentioning, “Our Stereo Camera for Lunar Plume-Surface Studies (SCALPSS) has been delivered to @Firefly_Space for its Commercial Lunar Payload Services flight. The tiny camera will help study surface regolith activity beneath the lander as it touches down on the Moon:” At this point, it’s clear that activity is beginning to pick up as the mission date gets closer.
As part of the mission, Firefly will deliver a suite of 10 NASA-sponsored payloads, as well as other commercial payloads, to the lunar surface in 2024. These payloads will operate using lander-provided data and power resources through transit to the Moon, for an entire lunar day, and into the lunar night in Mare Crisium. This exciting mission will support scientific lunar research and will contribute to developing a sustainable presence on the Moon. As one of the most powerful platforms in its class, Firefly is aiming to have Blue Ghost fly yearly lunar surface missions to diverse locations including the lunar poles and far side.
With this in mind, the next question becomes what launch vehicle is taking Blue Ghost all the way to the Moon. As we know, right now Firefly Aerospace only operates the Alpha launch vehicle. Alpha is not nearly big enough or powerful enough to make the journey. The next consideration by the company was Beta, a medium lift launch vehicle that acts as an upgraded version of Alpha. However, not nearly enough progress has been made on this system for a timely launch to the Moon. This is why in May 2021, Firefly announced that it had awarded a contract to SpaceX to launch its Blue Ghost lunar lander. At the time, Shea Ferring, Firefly’s Senior Vice President of Spacecraft, said, “Firefly is excited to fly our Blue Ghost spacecraft on the highly reliable Falcon 9. The high performance of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 launch vehicle permits a lunar transit using minimal Blue Ghost propulsion resources, thereby allowing the lander to deliver more than 150 kg of payload to the lunar surface.”
Blue Ghost Timeline
Now that we know more about Blue Ghost’s progress and some of the recent milestones that were completed, we can take a closer look at the lander itself, and its overall timeline. One of the most important steps in the lander’s history happened in October of last year. Here they completed the Critical Design Review (CDR) of their Blue Ghost lunar lander, paving the way for construction. After this announcement, we didn’t hear much about the project until April of this year. In this case, Firefly completed the Integration Readiness Review (IRR) of Blue Ghost M1, showcasing its ability to drive program readiness under an aggressive schedule. During the review, held at the company’s headquarters in Cedar Park, TX, the team marked key progress milestones across multiple areas, including Structures, Fluids, Propulsion, Core Avionics, Battery Production, Harness Production, FlatSat progress, and more. The completion of IRR came less than six months after completing the Critical Design Review (CDR). “The short turnaround between our CDR in October and IRR is a testament to the soundness of the baseline lander design, forward planning by program, and the creativity of our engineers in overcoming supply chain and other challenges as they arise,” said Will Coogan, Blue Ghost Chief Engineer.
As of right now, Firefly’s next milestone will be the Lander Test Readiness Review which verifies readiness for primary system functional testing. Not long from now, we can expect more information on this exact review and what it holds.
Focusing on the Blue Ghost lunar lander gives us a better idea of what exactly this mission is about and why it’s so important. To sum it up, the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) is a NASA program to contract transportation services able to send small robotic landers and rovers to the Moon’s south polar region primarily, with the goals of scouting for lunar resources, testing in situ resource utilization (ISRU) concepts, and performing lunar science to support the Artemis lunar program.
One of the reasons Blue Ghost qualified for this contract is its unique capabilities. For one, nearly any landing site on the near side of the Moon is achievable with this lander, including the lunar poles. Firefly’s baseline lunar capture orbit is near-polar, providing access to any surface location. Communication back to the Mission Control Center presently requires line of site to Earth, limiting transmission from polar regions to times when the Moon’s orbit around the Earth brings the relevant pole into view. However, the lander is designed to survive through communications blackout periods and to operate autonomously so long as the sun is shining. On-board processing and storage are used to operate payloads and store data gathered during blackouts so that they can be transmitted when communications become available again (usually after 8–20 days).
In other words, Blue Ghost is designed to operate for as long as it is illuminated, up to 14 days in most locations. There are two baseline lander configurations to accommodate power and thermal solutions at different latitudes. Mid and equatorial latitudes use three fixed solar arrays. For polar missions, the lander has less radiation area and accommodates longer operating periods at sites where extended periods of illumination are available. Extended operation at the poles is achieved through use of a deployable panel with a single-axis gimbal to track the Sun at any solar azimuth.
Another important aspect has to do with power. Firefly’s lander provides nominal power services on the ground, in orbit, and on the lunar surface. Keep-alive power is provided to the payloads during launch if needed. The spacecraft also provides a signal to power on the payloads upon completion of In-Orbit-Testing (IOT) or upon landing on the lunar surface, as desired. In addition, power can be supplied continuously or in a duty cycle manner to the cargo from Earth orbit through lunar surface operation completion.
Firefly recognizes the importance of the Moon to the future plans of both the US government and commercial industry, and they are working to lead a number of efforts to develop a future lunar architecture supporting advanced lunar surface capabilities. For one, their Beta launch vehicle, or MLV, will permit dedicated Trans-Lunar Injection (TLI) launches for Blue Ghost, as well as for other landers of similar size, increasing launch flexibility and payload 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 the ability to control schedule and prevent delays.
They finished by pointing out, “We are excited about our role in the future lunar economy and grateful for the present opportunities afforded to us by our CLPS contract with NASA. While recognizing that we compete with other talented organizations, we are confident that we offer the most proven lander solution for your payload and we believe that Firefly offers the greatest potential to serve your future needs. We look forward to learning how our mission can serve yours.”
Conclusion
Firefly Aerospace is not far away from its first mission to the Moon. After receiving a significant NASA contract in early 2021, the company got to work on Blue Ghost in order to transport and land 10 of the agency’s payloads on the surface. A mission that could play an important role in the future of Artemis and returning humans to the lunar surface. We will have to wait and see how it progresses and the impact it has on the space industry.
