The moon will be a busy place this year. Currently, there are three robot spacecraft in the space that aim to place the moon's surface.
The first to arrive – Blue Ghost Lunar Lander, built by Firefly Aerospace in Cedar Park, Texas, will try to land earlier Sunday.
When is it landing and how should I watch it?
This landing time is scheduled for March 2 at 3:45 am ET. Alternatively, you can watch it in the video player embedded above.
What is the destination of Blue Ghost?
The mission will head to Mare Crisium, a flat plain formed by lava, carved by ancient asteroid impacts in a 345-mile-wide crater. Mare Crisium is located in the northeastern quadrant near the moon.
What is Blue Ghost Moon Landing?
The lander brings a variety of scientific and experimental payloads to the moon's surface, including 10 of NASA. These include a drill bit that measures the flow of heat from the inside of the moon to the surface, an electric dust cover to clean the glass and radiator surfaces, and an X-ray camera.
The cargo is part of the Commercial Moon Payload Service or CLP, which aims to place NASA equipment on the moon at a cheap price, and NASA built its own Moon Landler. If all 10 payloads reach the moon's surface, the agency will pay $101.5 million, a little less if the mission is not fully successful.
Blue Ghost is the third CLPS mission to launch the moon. The first is 2024, astronomy from Pittsburgh, which failed after launch. The second was the intuitive machine of Houston last year, reaching the moon but tilting.
Why did landing happen so early?
Physics that arrive at a certain location in the solar system at a certain time are not always with people watching when they are awake. The Blue Ghost Lander Spacecraft gained power from solar panels, so the mission aims to land shortly after the dawn of the new moon day. And arrived at Mare Crisium on March 2, landing time is 3:45 AM
“That’s when that happens,” said Ray Allensworth, planning manager for Firefly Blue Ghost.
The mission is to last about 14 days until the moon.
How has the mission been so far?
The Blue Ghost almost performed well. For the first 25 days it circled the Earth as the company turned on and inspected the spacecraft system. It then launched the engine on a four-day journey into orbit on February 13. The spacecraft's camera has recorded a close-up view of the surface of the moon's crutch.
There were some minor failures along the way, but no major failures. Usually, mission controllers make adjustments when understanding how the spacecraft performs in space environments.
“The heat alarm may be issued,” Ms. Allensworth said. “Things become a little hotter than planned, and a restoration than the vehicle planned. You want to look at that data and see that it's actually OK.”
What happened to another Lunar Lander, launched with the Blue Ghost?
On the same SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, Blue Ghost was launched at Orbit, a lunar landing built by Japan's Ispace. The two tasks are independent, but Ispace seeks cheaper rides and asks SpaceX to do ride sharing, that is, rides as a secondary payload. It turned out to be a blue ghost launch.
Although elasticity plays at the same time as the Blue Ghost, it takes a longer, more fuel-efficient route to the moon and is expected to enter orbit around the moon in early May.
