While Intuitive Machines’ Athena lander quickly met its demise after awkwardly stumbling and ending up on its side, Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost spacecraft, which touched down just a few days earlier, is leaping into action.
After sending back a stunning image of the Sun rising in the distant horizon, the lander wasted no time and kicked off its Subsurface Thermal Exploration with Rapidity (LISTER) experiment.
The goal is to drill into the lunar surface within the Mare Crisium, a massive basin in the northeastern part of the Moon’s near side, in hopes of better understanding the geology of the Earth’s natural satellite.
In a video shared this week, the robot’s pneumatic drill can be seen plowing through the rocky lunar surface, sending sparks and pieces of rubble flying.
While it’s far from the first mission to drill into the lunar surface — astronauts used a drill during NASA’s Apollo 15 mission over half a century ago — it’s an exciting kick-off to what’s bound to be a flurry of activity on the lunar surface.
As of right now, NASA’s still looking to land the first astronauts on the Moon in a matter of years — and the scientific research being done as we speak could contribute to that goal.
The aim of Blue Ghost’s drilling is to measure the “temperature and flow of heat from the Moon’s interior,” according to the company. By studying the thermal conductivity of the various layers of the lunar surface, scientists are hoping to glean insights into how the Moon formed and cooled over billions of years.
The probe was jointly developed by researchers from Texas Tech University and the California-based startup Honeybee Robotics under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative.
They’re hoping to drill down to a depth of just shy of ten feet into the dusty regolith, as NASA explained in a December blog post. Every 1.6 feet, it will measure the heat flow and thermal conductivity of its surroundings using a custom-built thermal probe.
“By making similar measurements at multiple locations on the lunar surface, we can reconstruct the thermal evolution of the Moon,” said principal investigator and Texas Tech geophysics professor Seiichi Nagihara in a NASA statement. “That will permit scientists to retrace the geological processes that shaped the Moon from its start as a ball of molten rock, which gradually cooled off by releasing its internal heat into space.”
The space agency is hoping to use the data to assist during its upcoming Artemis missions to the lunar surface and eventually develop a sustainable presence there.
Blue Ghost is also outfitted with nine other NASA payloads, including “active dust mitigation technology that uses electric fields to move and prevent hazardous lunar dust accumulation on surfaces,” and an experiment to study “how lunar regolith sticks to a range of materials exposed to the Moon’s environment throughout the lunar day,” according to the agency.
On Wednesday, Blue Ghost is trying to stay cool during the “lunar noontime heat,” per Firefly. But as temperatures plummet, Blue Ghost is preparing to ramp up to “full power again soon.”
More on the lander: Amazing Video Shows Spacecraft Touching Down on Surface of Moon