🌙 Moon landing

TxTomTxTom
in General

Firefly Aerospace's unmanned lunar lander, Blue Ghost, is scheduled to land on the far side of the moon early Sunday morning around 3:30am ET.

Firefly Aerospace is located right here in Austin, Texas. The spacecraft has been orbiting the moon for approximately 2 weeks, and it will be only the second privately built craft to land on the moon.

Comments

  • JubalJubal
    edited March 2025

    Wait, did you say Firefly??

  • JohnR1972JohnR1972

    @txtom
    Thanks for sharing. I didn’t know anything about this (been working 12+ hour days the past several weeks and too busy to keep up with the news).

  • TxTomTxTom

    Touchdown.

    @1:06:01 (NSF)
    https://www.youtube.com/live/29GfQbq1lPE?si=atD9YlqHUFqeotoH

    @1:13:30 (Associated Press)
    https://www.youtube.com/live/IzyIfgKQHCg?si=7mYjRMERpKG9CKgR

    @1:17:06 (NASA)
    https://www.youtube.com/live/3SSjzdj-ONw?si=Gqx-BHidkM74wOVw

  • CuddleDuncanCuddleDuncan Mod

    Most excellent news!

  • [Deleted User]CharlesGrove (deleted user)

    I’m all for discovery, but I can only be so excited that the Billionaires are spending all this money to be able to escape Earth, rather than work to clean the Earth and make it a better place for everyone.

    I’m never going to the Moon, or Mars, but I’ve actually been to a lot of places here on Earth, and they seem to need a bit of clean up.

  • IronicMaidenIronicMaiden

    I'm all for billionaires going to Mars. Let them be the pioneers and trailblazers they claim to be.

  • CuddleDuncanCuddleDuncan Mod

    For the avoidance of doubt, this is a NASA science mission. But instead of doing all the work itself, NASA contracted Firefly to do it.

  • [Deleted User]CharlesGrove (deleted user)

    According to Firefly’s website they are independent of NASA, and its oversight, and they rely on private funding from specific investors.

    The sticker means very, very little.

  • IronicMaidenIronicMaiden

    Does NASA still exist and is functional?

  • CuddleDuncanCuddleDuncan Mod
    edited March 2025

    @CharlesGrove it's a NASA mission. NASA contracted Firefly to conduct the mission, and paid them $93m to do so. It's part of a much wider initiative whereby NASA stops doing everything itself and hires contractors to do it. Spaceflight is in transition from being a government operated activity to a commercially operated activity and indeed in the West that transition is largely complete.

    Firefly is obviously independent of NASA, that's the whole point. I presume it's just a regular commercial company.

    I don't understand your comment about a sticker, please elaborate.

  • SoosonSooson

  • [Deleted User]CharlesGrove (deleted user)

    @CuddleDuncan I was referring to the NASA placard/sticker on the photo of the foil covered landing module. Presuming that’s basically what that photo OP posted is, more or less.

    Probably has a different ACRONYM as a name, and the word “Synergy” or “Actioning” or “Resource” is probably among them…

  • JohnR1972JohnR1972
    edited March 2025

    From NASA.gov

    This is an official NASA mission. And NASA still stands for National Aeronautics and Space Administration just as it has since its founding in 1958.

  • TxTomTxTom

    Intuitive Machines' unmanned lunar lander, Athena, landed on the moon today around 1:00 pm ET.

    Intuitive Machines is based in Houston, Texas. The craft was launched in late February, but today's landing experienced complications--as it is suspected the craft is oriented incorrectly, thus limiting the power its solar panels can generate.

    This company successfully landed the first privately built craft, Odysseus, which landed on the moon last year in Febraury 2024, though, also not without some complications.

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