NASA recently announced that Firefly’s Blue Ghost lunar lander will be landing on the near side of the Moon on 2nd March and the coverage of the landing will be live-streamed by NASA and Firefly. This spacecraft has captured images of Earth and Moon together to test its cameras.
The lander filmed Earth passing in front of the Moon, creating an Eclipse and as it moved to the dark side of Earth, the planet turned into a glowing crescent. Blue Ghost lunar lander has captured an image of Earth with the moon appearing as a tiny dot in the background while the spacecraft’s reflective solar panels mirror Earth’s image in the foreground.
Previously Firefly Aerospace also shared a video on X platform which revealed that the spacecraft filmed the moon’s far side and captured craters, hills, and valleys in detail from low altitude.
Earth rise, Earth set, repeat! Blue Ghost's third and final lunar orbit maneuver is complete! Early this morning, our #GhostRiders performed a 16-second burn with our RCS thrusters to enter a near-circular low lunar orbit. Up next, we'll perform a 19-second Descent Orbit… pic.twitter.com/B8ptv1D0yv
— Firefly Aerospace (@Firefly_Space) February 24, 2025
This spacecraft entered the Moon’s orbit on 13 February and it will attempt to land on Moon on 2nd March. If successful in its mission, Blue Ghost would become the second private spacecraft to successfully soft-land on the Moon.
The Blue Ghost lunar lander was launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Launch Complex 39A of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on the 15th of January 2025 at 1:11 am EST carrying a suite of ten scientific investigations and technology demonstrations of NASA.
