Embarking on Blue Ghost: The Historic U.S. Lander Aims for Mare Crisium!

This artistic depiction shows the Blue Ghost lander resting on the Moon’s surface. Credit: Firefly Aerospace

Located near the Moon’s eastern edge is Mare Crisium — the Sea of Crises — a flat basalt plain surrounded by rugged mountains. Formed by a massive impact nearly 3.9 billion years ago, the 460-mile-wide (740 kilometers) mare appears mostly flat and lacks significant features. However, hints of its volcanic history can be seen everywhere, from its omnipresent darkness to craters that have been submerged and partially erased by ancient basalt lava flows — and a peculiar, solitary feature situated at its center: the four-mile-wide (6.4 km) Mons Latreille.

Shortly, a robotic vehicle known as Blue Ghost will make its descent here, carrying ten scientific instruments and technological tests as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative. Referred to as Blue Ghost Mission 1 and affectionately termed Ghost Riders in the Sky, this lander is aiming for a six-day launch window in mid-January.

A dynamic history

Mare Crisium tells the tale of a vibrant history: long, winding ridges extend across its eastern countryside, the faint remnants of ancient craters, and the peninsula-like formation of Promontorium Agarum touching its southeastern edge. Spanning a width greater than that of Arizona, the mare encompasses a land area of 68,000 square miles (176,000 square km) — comparable to Oklahoma.

Six decades prior, despite Russia falling behind in the space race against the U.S. when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin proudly stepped onto Tranquility Base in July 1969, the Soviets made a desperate attempt for recognition by aiming to return a lunar sample to Earth first.

While Armstrong and Aldrin rested in the hours following their momentous moonwalk, Russia’s Luna 15 robotic spacecraft endeavored to land in Crisium, located 344 miles (554 km) northeast of their site. However, it collided with a mountain during landing and was lost.

A subsequent attempt in 1974 saw Luna 23 land too rapidly and topple over. Yet in 1976, Luna 24 successfully retrieved 0.37 pounds (170 grams) of Crisium soil for eager Russian scientists. These samples hinted inconclusively at the existence of 0.1 percent water by mass.

In 2018, NASA initiated hiring private companies to deploy small robotic landers and rovers to the Moon through its CLPS program. One of those companies is Firefly Aerospace, founded in 2017 and based in Cedar Park, Texas, which launched its Firefly Alpha orbital rockets in 2021. Furthermore, it is constructing the first stage of Northrop Grumman’s new Antares 330 booster.

Firefly secured its inaugural CLPS contract in February 2021: a task order for $93.3 million to land on the Moon with Blue Ghost, a four-legged craft named after the uncommon Phausis reticulata firefly, known for its eerie bluish-white luminescence native to the eastern United States.

Lifted into orbit by SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, Blue Ghost will mark the first U.S. mission to Crisium. Standing at 6.6 feet (2 meters) high and 11.5 feet (3.5 m) wide, the Blue Ghost lander can carry approximately 330 pounds (150 kg) of payload to the Moon. It is equipped with one X-band and three S-band antennas for communications and HD video. Additionally, body-mounted solar panels will provide 300 watts of power for missions lasting up to 60 days.

The lander successfully completed its critical design review in October 2021 and its integration readiness review in April 2022. Assembly wrapped up by October 2023, by which time the mission’s launch had been delayed by a year to late 2024. According to NASA, the current launch window is set to open no sooner than the middle of this month and will last for six days.

A voyage to the Moon

Once launched, the lander’s journey to the Moon will span several weeks — providing Firefly ample time to ensure Blue Ghost’s functionality and gather data.

After 25 days orbiting Earth, it will set course for the Moon and establish lunar orbit for an additional 16 days of evaluation. On day 45, the mission will face its most challenging task — a tense descent from the 60-mile (100 km) orbit to the lunar surface.

About an hour prior to landing, Blue Ghost’s 1,000-newton primary engine will activate. The lander will then coast for 50 minutes while its terrain-relative navigation system computes altitude, descent rate, and identifies a viable landing zone. Twelve miles (20 km) above the surface, it will tilt forward, decelerating from 3,800 mph (6,100 km/h) to 90 mph (145 km/h) to align above the chosen touchdown area. The main engine will shut off at an altitude of 500 feet (1,600 m) as Blue Ghost’s eight reaction control thrusters pulse intermittently to fine-tune the descent.

This descent has been carefully rehearsed on Earth. Firefly conducted numerous drop tests on various surfaces (including sand, simulated lunar soil, and even concrete) to demonstrate that Blue Ghost’s shock-absorbing footpads can withstand challenging landing conditions.

Touching down at 2.2 mph (3.5 km/h), contact sensors within the footpads will confirm touchdown. The past hour’s tension will be replaced by the tranquility of a landscape untouched for millions of years.

A wealth of technology

At that point, Blue Ghost Mission 1 can genuinely commence. Over the course of 14 days, Blue Ghost’s instruments will examine their surroundings and assess technologies that may aid future human explorers. The Magnetotelluric Sounder from the Southwest Research Institute, a magnetometer mounted atop an 8-foot (2.5 m) mast, will investigate the lunar mantle to a depth of 700 miles (1,100 km) — two-thirds of the distance to the Moon’s core. Texas Tech University’s Lunar Instrumentation for Subsurface Thermal Exploration with Rapidity will drill 7 to 10 feet (2.1 to 3.3 m) into the lunar surface to gauge heat flow within.

The Next Generation Lunar Retroreflector from the University of Maryland will assist in measuring the Earth-Moon distance with submillimeter accuracy, providing insights into the lunar interior while addressing inquiries regarding general relativity and dark matter. The Lunar Environment Heliospheric X-ray Imager — supplied by NASA, Boston University, and Johns Hopkins University — will examine the interactions between Earth’s magnetosphere and the solar wind.

Aegis Aerospace’s Regolith Adherence Characterization will evaluate how abrasive lunar soil impacts various materials—including solar cells, optics, and spacesuit coatings. Meanwhile, Montana State University’s Radiation Tolerant Computer will assess hardened computing electronics on the Moon’s airless, radiation-rich surface.

NASA’s Stereo Cameras for Lunar Plume Surface Studies will capture still and video imagery to reveal how Blue Ghost’s engine exhaust displaces soil, rocks, and dust. Data obtained from its six small cameras will furnish 3D surface perspectives before and after touchdown, yielding insights into securely landing heavy landers and expansive habitats.

Honeybee Robotics’ Lunar PlanetVac will use pressurized gas to pneumatically capture pebble-sized soil samples into a collection chamber as a precursor to future sample-return endeavors. Lastly, NASA’s Electrodynamic Dust Shield will employ electric fields to eliminate lunar dust from the lander, testing potential future applications to clean solar panels, radiators, camera lenses, as well as astronauts’ suits, boots, and visors of the harmful material.

Ultimately, the U.S./Italian Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment intends to detect faint Global Navigation Satellite System signals from the lunar terrain for the first time — possibly enabling Earth-based GPS-type sensors to be utilized in future Moon missions.

Looking ahead

As it approaches Mission 1, Firefly is already strategizing Mission 2 and subsequent annual Blue Ghost flights. In March 2023, it secured a $112 million CLPS task order for a 2026 mission to deliver three payloads to the lunar farside, which includes an Australian-designed seismometer and a NASA astrophysics experiment.

Mission 2 will also introduce Firefly’s Elytra Dark transfer vehicle. After dispatching a Blue Ghost lander to the Moon’s farside — out of direct visual range with Earth — Elytra Dark will deploy Europe’s Lunar Pathfinder satellite to serve as a data relay for the lander.