NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter captured an exciting view of Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lander following its recent touchdown on the moon.
Blue Ghost successfully landed on the moon on Sunday (March 2), touching down in Mare Crisium ("Sea of Crises") — a large impact basin about 345 miles (555 kilometers) wide. The spacecraft sits near a volcanic cone called Mons Latreille within the basin, which is located in the northeast region of the moon's near side.
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spotted the lander among the moon's cratered surface in photos taken using the spacecraft's Narrow Angle Cameras. The photos, which NASA shared March 5 in a post on X (formally Twitter), were taken when the orbiter was roughly 109 miles (175 km) east of the Blue Ghost landing site.
Blue Ghost is a robotic lunar lander built and operated by the Texas-based company Firefly Aerospace. The lander flew to the moon as part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, which contracts private landers to deliver science and technology instruments to the lunar surface in support of the agency's Artemis program. Blue Ghost carried 10 such demonstration instruments with it to the moon.
The photos taken by LRO, which has been surveying the moon since 2009, show the Blue Ghost lander as a single bright pixel casting a shadow over the volcanic terrain. Since the images were taken from lunar orbit, it's hard to spot the little lander.
However, the base of Mons Latreille can be seen in the lower left corner of the image and used as a guide to find Blue Ghost, which landed within 330 feet (100 meters) of the volcanic feature.
Related: 'We're on the moon!' Private Blue Ghost moon lander aces historic lunar landing for NASA
The spacecraft is already hard at work, deploying its payloads, sampling lunar soil (or regolith) and taking photos of its surroundings. It will spend one lunar day, or about two Earth weeks, studying the moon and conducting technology demonstrations before the sun sets over Mare Crisium on March 16 and the solar-powered lander shuts down.
If all goes according to plan, the data obtained by Blue Ghost will provide insight to help prepare for future crewed Artemis missions and a more sustained human presence on the moon.
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