Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lunar lander snaps its 1st photos of the moon (images)

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Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost moon lander has snapped its first photos of its distant target.

On Monday (Jan. 27), Texas-based Firefly released two photos of the moon that Blue Ghost captured from Earth orbit. One shows the natural satellite all alone, a small grayish dot in an empty black sea; the other is a selfie, showing the moon glowing above some of Blue Ghost's golden hardware.

"While Blue Ghost is in Earth orbit, we'll continue to keep an eye on our final destination! To the moon!" Firefly said in a Monday X post that shared the two images.

Blue Ghost is Firefly's first-ever moon lander. It launched on Jan. 15 atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, which also carried a second private lunar lander — Resilience, which was built by the Japanese company ispace.

Blue Ghost's mission, which Firefly calls "Ghost Riders in the Sky," is part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, or CLPS. The agency put 10 science experiments aboard the lander, to gather data that will help the Artemis program's push to return astronauts to the lunar surface a few years from now.

Everything seems to be going well for Blue Ghost so far. The lander remains healthy in orbit and has completed two engine burns on schedule, according to Firefly. In about 10 days, the spacecraft will conduct its most important engine firing yet — a translunar injection burn, which will set it on course for the moon.

That trip will take about four Earth days. Blue Ghost will then spend 16 days in lunar orbit, after which it will attempt to land within Mare Crisium ("Sea of Crises"), a large basin on the moon's near side.

The solar-powered Blue Ghost will operate for about two Earth weeks on the lunar surface, shutting down a few hours after the sun sets at its location.

The newly released moon pics aren't the first exciting imagery that Blue Ghost has beamed home. The lander also witnessed a solar eclipse and has captured beautiful "blue marble" views of Earth.

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The other moon lander that went up on Jan. 15, ispace's Resilience, also appears to be doing well. Resilience has hit its milestones on schedule so far, according to the company, and is gearing up for a lunar flyby that will take place around Feb. 15.

Resilience is taking a longer, more circuitous route to the moon than Blue Ghost is; the Japanese lander won't reach lunar orbit until about four months after launch. It will attempt a touchdown about two weeks after that.

Resilience is ispace's second lunar lander. The company's first one reached lunar orbit successfully in March 2023 but failed during its landing try a month later.