US private spaceship is close to making a daring touchdown on the Moon
After traversing a long journey through space, a US spacecraft is poised to make a daring touchdown on the Moon and become the only second private lander to achieve the feat if it succeeds, media reports said.
Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost Mission 1 is targeting landing around 3:34 am US Eastern time (0834 GMT) on Sunday.
It is aiming to make the landing at a site near Mons Latreille, a volcanic feature in Mare Crisium on the Moon's northeastern near side.
"Blue Ghost is ready to take the wheel!" The company posted on X on Saturday evening, adding flight controllers had just initiated a key maneuver that lowered a spacecraft's orbit.
With a suite of @NASA science and technology on board, @Firefly_Space is targeting no earlier than 3:34 a.m. EST on Sunday, March 2, to land the Blue Ghost lunar lander on the Moon.
— NASA Marshall (@NASA_Marshall) February 28, 2025
Live coverage will air on NASA+ around 75 minutes before touchdown >> https://t.co/7VZfUW0mjK pic.twitter.com/yqVe0OB48v
Nicknamed "Ghost Riders in the Sky," the mission comes just a year after the first-ever commercial lunar landing.
It is part of a NASA partnership with industry to cut costs and support Artemis.
The program aims to return astronauts to the Moon.
The golden lander, about the size of a hippopotamus, was launched on January 15 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
It has so far captured footage of Earth and the Moon as it travelled through the space. It shared a ride with a Japanese company's lander set to attempt a landing in May.
Blue Ghost carries ten instruments, including a lunar soil analyzer, a radiation-tolerant computer and an experiment testing the feasibility of using the existing global satellite navigation system to navigate the Moon, said reports.
IBNS
Senior Staff Reporter at Northeast Herald, covering news from Tripura and Northeast India.
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