WASHINGTON — One commercial lunar lander has entered orbit around the moon while another, launched at the same time, has performed a lunar flyby to set up a later return.
Firefly Aerospace confirmed Feb. 13 that its Blue Ghost 1 lander entered orbit around the moon, performing a 4-minutes, 15-second burn of its reaction control system thrusters starting at 8:51 p.m. Eastern.
The company did not disclose specifics about the orbit but amateur trackers, monitoring its radio signals, estimated that the spacecraft is in an orbit between 150 and 5,673 kilometers above the moon. Firefly said the lander will perform additional maneuvers to move into a circular orbit to prepare for its landing attempt.
That landing is scheduled for 3:45 a.m. Eastern March 2, the company and NASA announced Feb. 14. Blue Ghost 1 is carrying 10 NASA payloads through the agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program intended to operate at the landing site near Mare Crisium through the end of the lunar day and several hours after sunset.
Blue Ghost 1 launched Jan. 15 on a Falcon 9, sharing the launch with the Resilience lunar lander from Japanese company ispace. Resilience, the company’s second lander mission, performed a lunar flyby Feb. 14, passing about 8,400 kilometers from the lunar surface at 5:43 p.m. Eastern.
Resilience is following a low-energy trajectory to the moon, one that will take is as far as 1.1 million kilometers from Earth before returning in early May to perform a lunar orbit insertion burn. That will be followed by a landing attempt in the Mare Frigoris region of the moon, although ispace has not disclosed a planned landing date.
“I feel very confident about the Resilience lander, which has steadily achieved milestones and is on track for success, and our employees who have made meticulous preparations for this impressive flyby of the moon,” Takeshi Hakamada, founder and chief executive of ispace, said in a statement.
Both Firefly Aerospace and ispace have outlined milestones and success criteria for their lander mission. For Firefly, achieving lunar orbital insertion was the 10th of 17 milestones from launch to operations of the lander after sunset on the lunar surface. The lunar flyby by Resilience was the fifth of 10 milestones for ispace, from pre-launch preparations to establishing a “steady system state” after landing.
Blue Ghost 1 could end up operating on the lunar surface at the same time as another commercial lander. Intuitive Machines is preparing for a Feb. 26 launch of its IM-2 lunar lander mission at the beginning of a window that runs for four days. IM-2, like the company’s IM-1 lander mission a year ago, is taking more direct route to the moon. Steve Altemus, chief executive of Intuitive Machines, told CNBC Feb. 7 that a launch any day in the window would set up a landing in the Mons Mouton region near the south pole the moon on March 6.