Firefly Bids Farewell to Its Lunar Lander After 14 Days on the Moon

Firefly’s Blue Ghost lander went gently into the lunar night after spending a full lunar day on the Moon, gathering data and beaming it back to Earth as part of the company’s first commercial drop-off mission. Blue Ghost sent its final transmission on Sunday at 7:15 p.m. ET, wrapping up the longest private mission on the Moon to date. Firefly’s lander touched down on the lunar surface on Sunday, March 2, landing in an ancient impact site known as Mare Crisium. After pulling off a flawless touchdown, Blue Ghost got to work on the Moon’s dusty surface. The lander completed 14 days of surface operations, deploying its various payloads and transmitting more than 119 gigabytes of data back to Earth. This was the longest the mission could last, as Blue Ghost is not built to survive the frigid lunar night. “There is no such thing as an easy Moon landing, especially on your first attempt,” Will Coogan, chief engineer of the Blue Ghost mission at Firefly Aerospace, said in a statement. “We ba ... Read full article.