In only a few months from now Firefly Aerospace, a relatively small U.S. company will attempt to touch down on the Moon’s surface. For the past few years, they have been working on a lunar lander named Blue Ghost. Currently, it’s fully assembled and finishing up some final environmental testing before being integrated on its launch vehicle.
While Firefly Aerospace does have its own small lift launch rocket, Alpha, in order to get the payload all the way to the Moon, they decided to use a SpaceX Falcon 9.
Final Testing
Starting back in 2021, NASA awarded Firefly Aerospace approximately $93.3 million to deliver a suite of 10 science investigations and technology demonstrations to the Moon in 2023. After a few delays and rescheduling, that mission is now set to happen in the fourth quarter of this year, so in just a few months. The award is part of the agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, in which NASA is securing the service of commercial partners with the goal of quickly landing science and technology payloads on the lunar surface.
In the past few years since the initial award, Firefly has been busy getting this lander ready as well as the different groups responsible for each of the 10 science investigations. Almost a year ago last October, Firefly had completed the actual structure of the lander.
The lander’s core components, including the panels, struts, legs, harnesses, avionics, batteries, and thrusters, were designed and built in-house. The team also conducted extensive qualification testing on the assembled Blue Ghost structure and each component to ensure the lander will withstand all the launch, transit, and landing load cases. Obviously landing on the Moon is no easy feat. We recently watched the Intuitive Machines lander attempt it and end up on its side after a few different complications. A fate Firefly and Blue Ghost are definitely trying to avoid.
Last month on August 15th, Firefly tweeted saying, “Big win today on the Blue Ghost front: All 8 thrusters are qualified, acceptance tested, and integrated on the lander! During Blue Ghost Mission 1, these Reaction Control System thrusters, called Spectre, will help maintain the lander’s orientation during maneuvers and independently perform the final descent, throttling as needed for a soft landing on the Moon. Stay tuned for more updates as we get ready to ship Blue Ghost for final environmental testing before launching later this year” they said. With this step complete, an eventual integration with SpaceX’s Falcon 9 is not far away.
In additon, late last month the company confirmed that the Blue Ghost lunar lander has arrived at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) for environmental testing before the lander ships to Cape Canaveral for a Q4 2024 launch.
The environmental testing at JPL includes vibration, acoustic, thermal vacuum, and electromagnetic interference and compatibility testing to ensure the integrated lander can withstand various flight environments during launch, transit, and landing on the Moon. They mentioned that “This testing follows Firefly’s robust testing campaign, including extensive qualification testing on the assembled Blue Ghost structure and each component.”
Firefly also completed nearly 100 lander leg drop tests on multiple surfaces, including sand, lunar simulant, and concrete, to ensure Blue Ghost’s shock-absorbing footpads can withstand the unpredictable nature of the lunar surface. The team further built a one-acre moonscape at its Rocket Ranch to test the hazard avoidance and terrain-relative navigation system on a heavy-lift drone, ensuring the system can identify the safest landing site in the final moments of descent.
In a statement, they said, “Following final testing, Firefly’s Blue Ghost will ship to Cape Canaveral, Florida, ahead of its launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket scheduled for Q4 2024. Blue Ghost will then begin its transit to the Moon, including approximately a month in Earth orbit and two weeks in lunar orbit. This approach provides ample time to conduct robust health checks on each subsystem and begin payload operations during transit.”
Mission Overview
When Firefly picked SpaceX back in 2021, they were quoted saying, “Firefly is excited to fly our Blue Ghost spacecraft on the highly reliable Falcon 9, which will deliver NASA instruments and technology demonstration payloads that support NASA science goals and NASA’s Artemis program. 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”. Also, due to the size and destination of the lander, it won’t be a dedicated mission where Blue Ghost is the sole payload, but instead a rideshare mission with quite a few other payloads.
Even though this is the first mission and it still has a few months to go, NASA has already paid for a second. Back in early 2023, NASA awarded the company a $112 million contract to deliver multiple lunar payloads in 2026. As Firefly’s second task order won under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, the company will use its Blue Ghost spacecraft in a two-stage configuration to first place a satellite into lunar orbit and then deliver two research payloads on the far side of the Moon.
On that mission, along with the NASA payloads, Firefly’s mission is offering payload delivery and orbital services for additional government and commercial customers. In a statement, the company said, “The robust and versatile design of the company’s Blue Ghost transfer vehicle and its propellant reserve will enable a variety of mission opportunities, including lunar sample return to Earth, further exploration to nearby planets like Mars and Venus, and long-duration orbital services, such as communications and surveying.” Before that, however, they need to complete the first mission in only a few months.
When it does happen, after the Falcon 9 lifts off and deploys Blue Ghost, the lander will spend around 45 days in transit to the Moon, allowing ample time to conduct robust health checks on each subsystem and begin the payload science. Importantly, Blue Ghost will then land in Mare Crisium and operate payloads for a complete lunar day (about 14 Earth days) and more than 5 hours into the freezing dark of lunar night.
More specifically, Blue Ghost will land near a volcanic feature within Mare Crisium, a large basin located in the northeast quadrant of the Moon’s near side. Mare Crisium was created by early volcanic eruptions and flooded with basaltic lava more than 3 billion years ago. This unique landing site it meant to allow the mission payload partners to gather critical data about the Moon’s regolith, geophysical characteristics, and the interaction of solar wind and Earth’s magnetic field. These investigations will help prepare for human missions to the lunar surface.
Each of the payloads on Blue Ghost Mission 1 will help advance lunar research and conduct several first-of-its-kind demonstrations, including testing regolith sample collection, Global Navigation Satellite System abilities, radiation tolerant computing, and lunar dust mitigation. The data captured will also benefit humans on Earth by providing insights into how space weather and other cosmic forces impact Earth, among other valuable research. Some of the groups responsible for the payloads include NASA, Honeybee Robotics, the University of Maryland, and more.
One feature that Firefly points out is the lander’s ability to utilize nearly and landing site on the near side of the Moon, including the lunar poles. The baseline lunar capture orbit is near-polar, providing access to any surface location for nearly identical values. Communication back to the Mission Control Center (MCC) presently requires a line of sight to Earth, limiting transmission from polar regions to times when the Moon’s orbit about 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 regard to the recent progress, the Vice President of Spacecraft at Firefly Aerospace said, “This incredible Firefly team implemented innovative testing approaches that are setting a new standard in the industry. After all the hard work, it’s bittersweet to see Blue Ghost leave our Texas-based facility, but we’re more than ready for this final test. We’ll have a dedicated team of Fireflies with the lander every step of the way as Blue Ghost travels from Texas to California to Florida ahead of this historic journey to the Moon.”
“Firefly is proud to follow in the footsteps of the Surveyor landers that were tested in the same JPL facilities,” said Peter Schumacher, Interim CEO at Firefly Aerospace. “The extensive environmental testing we’ll complete at JPL combined with the robust testing we’ve already completed in house will further reduce our risk posture and set us up for a successful, soft landing.”
Conclusion
Firefly Aerospace is now just a few months away from the launch of its Blue Ghost lunar lander. Onboard are 10 NASA-sponsored payloads hoping to land on the Moon’s surface and conduct science among other objectives. A task that is not easy to do and has proven to come with challenges as seen in recent attempts.