An uncrewed spacecraft just snapped an iconic portrait of the blue marble from space.
Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lander, a private spacecraft hired by NASA to take experiments to the moon, is flying laps around Earth right now as it gears up for its first attempt at a lunar touchdown.
Blue Ghost captured the Earth image, shown below, during its second engine burn — the first that must be successfully achieved in order to get to the moon, some 239,000 miles away. The spacecraft will fly two more weeks around the planet before its Trans Lunar Injection, the maneuver that will put it on a moon-bound trajectory.
When flight controllers fired the engines for the first time in space days before, it was emotional for the small team of engineers who worked on it, said Ryan Cole, the engine manager, during a video update on the mission.
"The moment that we completed the maneuver was really special for everybody. I don't think anybody quite believed what they were looking at for the first few seconds," he said. "Everything looks healthy right now."
Blue Ghost, originally scheduled to lift off in late 2024, is the first NASA Commercial Lunar Payload Services mission of the year. The program has invested $2.6 billion in contracts with vendors from the private sector to help deliver instruments to the moon and send back crucial data.
The lander was one of two spacecraft headed to the moon on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Jan. 15. Japan's ispace Resilience lander, the company's second stab at getting to the moon after a failed attempt in 2023, was sharing the ride. Both spacecraft separated from the rocket later that day after liftoff.
The Firefly spacecraft is carrying 10 experiments for the space agency. NASA wants to see a regular cadence of moon missions to prepare for astronaut-led Artemis expeditions in 2027 or later.
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Landing on the moon remains onerous. The moon's exosphere provides virtually no drag to slow a spacecraft down as it approaches the ground. Furthermore, there are no GPS systems on the moon to help guide a craft to its landing spot.
Once Blue Ghost embarks on its moon-bound trajectory, it will take four days for it to arrive at the moon. The spacecraft will spend 16 days in lunar orbit before descending to the lunar surface. It's targeting a landing on March 2.
