Blue Ghost private glider has reached the moon
Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost mission on Sunday made history as the first private cislunar (lander) to land on the Moon. “We want to thank NASA…for entrusting in the Firefly team,” Firefly Aerospace’s Chief Technology Officer Shea Ferring said. The company’s two-metre-high cislunar will carry a drill and a ‘planetvac’ to scoop the lunar dirt, among other experiments.
The first images of Blue Ghost are on the lunar surface
NASA has successfully landed its Blue Ghost mission on the Moon, making it the second private mission to land on the Moon after Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus last year. Blue Ghost is a lunar lander designed for human exploration, with a drill and a ‘vac planet’ to scoop the lunar dirt. This is also the first time a private mission has landed on the Moon.
Chandrayaan-2 APXS is at the lunar high latitude
NASA’s Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter has revealed lunar multiring basins on Moon are dominated by pyroxene. It explained why lunar rocks have an isotope composition similar to those on Earth. It also revealed the Radial thickness variation in impact crater ejecta. Compositional maps of lunar polar regions derived from Kaguya Spectral Profiler and Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter data.
China returned the first-ever samples from the far side of the Moon
China on Wednesday launched its first lunar satellite to land on the far side of the Moon to help scientists understand the terrain of the Moon and possibly shed light on the early history of the Moon and Earth. China plans to send its Chang’e 7 spacecraft to the Moon’s south pole in 2026 to search for water and other resources.
China has sent its first-ever samples from the far side of the moon
The first soil samples taken from the far side of the Moon arrived on Earth on Wednesday. The samples were delivered by the Chang’e 6 spacecraft, which landed at the moon’s south pole in December 2017. China plans to send its Chang’e 7 spacecraft to the moon’s south pole in 2026 to search for water and other resources.
Here’s what you can expect when the giant rocket launches again
Elon Musk-led SpaceX has launched its Starship rocket, the biggest rocket ever built, for the third time. The Starship is developed to be the world’s largest rocket with 33 Raptor engines, designed to carry astronauts to Moon’s surface and back. While Starship’s first two flights were aborted due to safety issues, SpaceX has successfully launched Starship three times before.
The Odysseus moon landers won’t work after sideways landing
NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter shared a photo of the US-led Odysseus mission’s first Moon landing near the south pole of the moon. Odysseus, built by Lockheed Martin, landed within around two kilometres of its intended target near the Malapert A crater. Odysseus was launched in March and only had a week to operate before the long lunar night set in.
The first US Moon landing in 1972 by Odysseus
The Odysseus Moon Lander has landed at the South Pole on the Moon. The private US mission was paid for by NASA and the space agency is counting on firms like Intuitive Machines to help ferry equipment to the Moon in preparation for sending astronauts to the lunar surface. The lander, operated by US-based Intuitive Machines, landed at the south pole after a nine-day journey.
The first US Moon landing has been more than 50 years in the making
The US has become the first country to land a private mission on the Moon after Odysseus, a solar-powered spacecraft, landed on the lunar surface on Wednesday. NASA paid for much of the private mission, but is counting on companies like Intuitive Machines to help bring equipment to the Moon in order to get astronauts back there.
A private company is about to land on the moon
Intuitive Machines’ ‘Odysseus’ lander, the first private spacecraft to land on Moon, touched down at the lunar south pole on Wednesday morning. The mission is a part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) programme, which aims to collect important data about the Moon’s surface. Odysseus had launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket last week.