Moon enthusiasts (lunatics?) rejoice! We have a Moon lander that didn’t fall over or crash, and it has returned an image that some have heralded as being as significant as the “Pale Blue Dot!”
Many of you may have witnessed the “Blood Moon” during the total lunar eclipse on Saturday March 13, 2025, but this time there was a camera on the surface of the Moon looking back towards the Earth, and it captured a red ring encircling the Earth. I’ve got to admit, I stared at this image with my mouth hanging slack, saying Wowwwwwwwwwwwwww!
Firefly Aerospace successfully placed their Blue Ghost lunar lander on the surface of the Moon on March 2, 2025. The landing occurred near lunar sunrise, so the lander would have two weeks of sunlight before plunging into the cold of the lunar night.
The video is spectacular – it’s interesting to see how the plume of dust clears so quickly after landing, but as Scott Manley points out – there’s no air for the dust particles to get suspended-in, so they fall right back down to the surface. There have been worries about a multitude of future lunar landings kicking up particles – possibly even into orbit, and then becoming a hazard; one of the instruments on the lander will help study this.
The lander carried several NASA payloads including a drill, retroreflector, sensors, sample collection, plume analysis, and more!
The other amazing thing Blue Ghost did was capture a video of the lunar sunset, illuminating the very thin lunar atmosphere. I found out the Moon had an atmosphere in 2014 when I was researching for a lecture about NASA’s LADEE mission.
NASA science highlights from the mission include:
- The Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment (LuGRE) acquired and tracked Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) signals, from satellite networks such as GPS and Galileo, in transit and on the surface of the Moon. This is the first time a navigation solution has been achieved using GNSS signals in lunar orbit and on the Moon.
- The Lunar Environment heliospheric X-ray Imager (LEXI) captured a series of X-ray images to study the interaction of the solar wind and Earth’s magnetic field, providing insights into how space weather and other cosmic forces surrounding Earth affect the planet.
- The Next Generation Lunar Retroreflector (NGLR) successfully reflected and returned laser light from two Lunar Laser Ranging Observatories, returning measurements that allow scientists to precisely measure the Moon’s shape and distance from Earth, expanding our understanding of the Moon’s inner structure.
- The Lunar Magnetotelluric Sounder (LMS) was activated and successfully deployed five sensors to study the Moon’s interior by measuring electric and magnetic fields. The LMS instrument will allow scientists to characterize the interior of the Moon to depths up to 700 miles or more than halfway to the center of the Moon.
- The Lunar Instrumentation for Subsurface Thermal Exploration with Rapidity (LISTER) is now the deepest robotic planetary subsurface thermal probe, reaching up to 3 feet (1 meter). Providing a first-of-its kind demonstration of robotic thermal measurements at varying depths, LISTER uses gas as the primary means of excavating (without conventional rotary or percussive drilling elements), as well as a coiled metal tube that straightens out and bores down in the hole created by the compressed gas.
- The Stereo Cameras for Lunar Plume-Surface Studies (SCALPSS) instrument captured more than 3,000 images during the spacecraft’s lunar descent and touchdown on the Moon, providing insights into the effects engine plumes have on the surface. The SCALPSS payload also took hourly images the first couple of days after landing and was able to observe the shadows moving over the surface, which provided some additional data regarding the areas previously in shadow.
- Lunar PlanetVac (LPV) was deployed on Blue Ghost’s surface access arm and successfully collected, transferred, and sorted lunar soil from the Moon using pressurized nitrogen gas, demonstrating a low-cost, low-mass solution for future robotic sample collection.
- The Electrodynamic Dust Shield (EDS) successfully lifted and removed lunar regolith using electrodynamic forces on the glass and thermal radiator surfaces. These results demonstrate that EDS is a promising solution for dust mitigation on future lunar and interplanetary surface operations.
- The Regolith Adherence Characterization (RAC) instrument examined how lunar regolith sticks to a range of materials exposed to the Moon’s environment, allowing the industry to better test, improve, and protect spacecraft, spacesuits, and habitats from abrasive lunar dust or regolith.
- The Radiation Tolerant Computer (RadPC) successfully operated in transit, including through the Earth’s Van Allen Belts, and on the lunar surface, verifying solutions to mitigate radiation effects on computers that could make future missions safer and more cost effective. – From NASA Blog
And now for something completely different
I mentioned NASA’s LADEE mission above – I don’t believe I’ve shared this NASA photo in any of my posts.
