A private spacecraft carrying NASA instruments to the surface of the moon in preparation for astronauts to return in the years ahead has reached lunar orbit about a month into its spaceflight.
Preparations for the uncrewed lunar lander built and operated by Texas-based Firefly Aerospace to enter the moon’s orbit ramped up Feb. 8 with a propulsive maneuver known as a “trans lunar injection.”
Then on Thursday, the lander, named Blue Ghost, fired its engines for four minutes to propel the spacecraft beyond Earth’s orbit toward the moon. The engine burn was the most challenging the lander had conducted with its main engine and thrusters since launching Jan. 15 from Florida on a SpaceX rocket, NASA said.
“Goodbye Earth, hello moon,” Firefly said in an update on its mission blog the day before it planned to leave Earth behind and enter the lunar orbit.
As of Monday, the Blue Ghost spacecraft had spent 25 days in Earth’s orbit and another seven days in lunar transit. Once the craft had first entered the moon’s orbit, ahead of it was 16 days of additional maneuvers to take the lander closer to the lunar surface before it attempts a landing March 2.
Here’s everything to know about Blue Ghost’s lunar journey so far, and how its mission when it arrives will pave the way for humanity’s return to the moon:
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Blue Ghost lander reaches lunar orbit
Firefly’s 6-foot-tall lunar lander entered the moon’s orbit Thursday after starting a lunar orbit insertion burn around 9 p.m. EST that lasted just over four minutes.
The milestone came five days after the Blue Ghost completed a maneuver, the trans lunar injection, meant to allow it to escape Earth’s gravitational pull and send it on a short transit to the moon’s orbit.
Following that initial maneuver, the Blue Ghost captured two new incredible shots – one of Earth with the moon in the distance and one of Earth reflecting off the spacecraft’s solar panel with the moon on the horizon. The first close-up image of the moon’s south pole was then captured during the lunar orbit insertion itself.
In the next roughly two weeks, Firefly mission engineers plan to calibrate the spacecraft’s navigation system and continue to evaluate its scientific payloads for NASA before the descent. Upon arrival at the moon, Firefly’s spacecraft will deliver and help test that fleet of NASA’s scientific instruments.
Firefly spacecraft’s journey since launching
Since Blue Ghost launched Jan. 15 atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, the lander has spent weeks testing the scientific equipment it’s transporting to the moon for NASA while gathering some incredible images along the way.
Those first images came one day after the launch from the U.S. space agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, but plenty more have followed since.
On Jan. 27, Blue Ghost captured the first images of the moon in the distance days after it fired its engines in a critical burn to raise its apogee – the point when it is furthest from Earth in its orbit of the planet – as it prepared to enter the moon’s orbit.
The lander also observed and documented the Earth eclipsing the moon – from its vantage, at least – and on Feb. 3 beamed back a stunning “selfie” with Earth in the background.
Among the scientific instruments the lander has tested is an X-ray imager calibrated to study the interaction of solar wind and the Earth’s magnetic field that drive geomagnetic disturbances on our planet.
The lander also successfully operated NASA’s Radiation Tolerant Computer (RadPC) while passing through the Van Allen radiation belts, a treacherous region astronauts will have to traverse on future missions to the moon and Mars. The tests provided insights into what astronauts may experience, as well as how to mitigate the effects of radiation on computers.
Firefly and NASA have also both confirmed that NASA’s Lunar PlanetVac is operational in advance of its own surface operations on the moon to collect and transfer lunar soil to other science instruments or sample return containers.
What to know about the NASA-backed mission
The mission comes as NASA prepares to send American astronauts back to the moon’s surface under its Artemis campaign – the agency’s first lunar program since the Apollo missions came to an end in 1972. Firefly is the second commercial company NASA hired to develop, operate and land a spacecraft on the lunar surface after Houston-based Intuitive Machines made history in 2024.
Blue Ghost’s planned hourlong landing, which is targeted to conclude Sunday, March 2 at 3:45 a.m. EST, also comes as Intuitive Machines plans yet another lunar landing mission of its own that could launch as early as Feb. 26.
The 10 instruments being transported to the moon, which NASA said constitute the largest delivery to date under its Commercial Lunar Payload Services program or CLPS, will be put to use when the craft lands near a volcanic feature called Mons Latreille. The region is located within Mare Crisium, a 300-mile-wide basin in the northeast quadrant of the moon’s near side, that is believed to have been created by early volcanic eruptions and flooded with basaltic lava more than 3 billion years ago.
Firefly’s team plans to operate the 10 NASA instruments for a complete lunar day, equivalent to about 14 Earth days.
Blue Ghost also plans to capture high-definition imagery of a total eclipse as the Earth blocks the sun just before a lunar sunset ushers in frigid lunar night on March 16.
Eric Lagatta covers breaking and trending news for USA TODAY. Reach him at elagatta@gannett.com