Houston – As the sun sets over the Blue Ghost Moonlander and ends its 14-day mission, the robot captured a view that could only be seen as dancing in the prolonged sunlight with particles on the surface of the moon.
Blue Ghost Lander from Firefly Aerospace took a high-resolution image of the moon setting on March 16th. This is to end the robot mission on a moon night.
However, Lander has been operating for over five hours in the dark, still marking the longest commercial mission of the month.
Due to the successful landing, Blue Ghost delivered 10 NASA Science instruments to the moon on March 2nd in an area known as the Marlesiam.
This mission is part of NASA's Commercial Month Payload Services (CLPS) program. Firefly Aerospace is the first commercial company to achieve all milestones in the CLPS mission, including upright landings.
Two CLP missions from another Texas company, the intuitive machine, landed on the moon, but remained upright due to scientific operations.
“There was nothing easy about this mission,” said Jason Kim, CEO of Firefly Aerospace. “I think we heard our chief engineer come in and say, 'Y'all is stuck on the landing and we're on the moon.' And soon after, the team finally began to celebrate, but soon they manipulated the payload, collected all the scientific data, and illuminated it to the earth. ”
In addition to the collected NASA scientific data, Blue Ghost shared detailed images from the moon, including solar eclipses and moon sunsets.
NASA and Firefly Aerospace shared images of the Tuesday sunset, two days after the mission officially ended on the moon.
Scientists analyze these photos and videos to analyze the phenomenon known as Lunar Horizon Glow.
“The moon's dust particles can be charged due to exposure to the sun's ultraviolet radiation, and these particles experience what we think is an electrostatic repulsion and lift them off the moon,” said the NASA Associate Deputy Administrator.
By theorizing this process, scientists will dance in the sun, or Legiolis, in the sunlight.
Firefly Spacecraft program director Ray Allensworth said Blue Ghost is not expected to survive the moonlit night, but will check out Lander in early April to see if it will come back.
