Two lunar landers are scheduled to launch next week, as scientists collect data needed to establish human habitation on the moon.
The Blue Ghost lunar lander of the private American company Firefly Aerospace and the Resilience spacecraft of the Japanese company iSpace are scheduled to launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
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The launch is currently scheduled for 1:11 a.m. EDT (6:11 a.m. GMT) on January 15 from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
A Falcon 9 rocket will eject Firefly's Blue Ghost lander into Earth orbit, where it will rest for 25 days.
It will burn out the engine that will put it on a straight path to the moon.
The spacecraft will then orbit the Moon for another 16 days, before preparing to land on Mare Crisium, or Sea of Crises – the site of an ancient asteroid impact.
If the rover survives the journey, it will begin sending high-resolution images of the lunar surface back to Earth within 30 minutes of landing.
On board will be 10 NASA science experiments, one of which will require collecting lunar dust to measure radiation on the moon's surface.
Another will monitor Earth's magnetic field, also known as the magnetosphere, and how it interacts with the solar wind – the particles that cause the northern lights.
“We expect to see the magnetosphere heave and breathe for the first time,” NASA's Hyunjoo Connor said in a statement.
“When the solar wind is very strong, the magnetosphere will contract and push back toward Earth, then expand as the solar wind weakens.”
A third experiment also aims to measure the distance between the Earth and the Moon with an accuracy of less than a millimeter.
If the landing is successful, the Blue Ghost mission will be the second successful lunar mission since Intuitive Machine's Odysseus lander in February last year.
Odysseus was not only the first private spacecraft to land on the moon, it was the first American lunar landing since 1972.
The Resilience lander will deliver a small rover called Tenacious to collect lunar soil, which iSpace plans to sell back to NASA.
The lander will also carry a self-contained module designed to conduct food production experiments on the lunar surface.
As a company that has experienced the frustration of failure, iSpace recognizes the importance of learning from it and trying again.
iSpace CEO Takeshi Hakamada
The spacecraft comes from the same startup that successfully sent the Hakuto-R lander to the moon's surface in April 2023.
But the ambitious mission ended in failure when it crashed into the moon's surface.
Company leaders appeared optimistic about the prospects for success at a press conference on Thursday.
“This will be a new challenge for us,” iSpace CEO Takeshi Hakamada said at the time.
“As a company that has experienced the frustration of failure, iSpace recognizes the importance of learning from it and trying again.
“We aim to achieve a successful moon landing and bring excitement to the world.”
Both rovers are headed to the Moon as part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative.
They have only 14 days to carry out their missions before lunar night falls, and very few lunar landers are designed to withstand the lunar nighttime temperatures.
The Moon – our nearest neighbor explained
Here's what you need to know…
- The Moon is a natural satellite – a space object orbiting a planet
- It is Earth's only natural moon, and is the fifth largest moon in the solar system
- The Moon is 2,158 miles across, roughly 0.27 times the Earth's diameter
- Temperatures on the Moon vary greatly. NASA explains: “Temperatures near the Moon’s equator can rise to 250°F (121°C) in daylight, then drop after nightfall to -208°F (-133°C). In deep craters near the poles Moon, permanent shadows keep the surface cooler – NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has measured temperatures as low as -410 degrees Fahrenheit (-246 degrees Celsius).”
- Until Nicolaus Copernicus put forward his theory about our solar system in 1543, experts assumed the moon was another planet.
- It was eventually assigned to a “class” after Galileo discovered four moons orbiting Jupiter in 1610
- The moon is believed to have formed about 4.51 billion years ago
- The strength of its gravitational field is about one-sixth that of Earth's gravity
- The Earth and Moon have a “synchronous rotation,” meaning we always see the same side of the Moon – hence the phrase “dark side of the Moon.”
- The moon's surface is actually dark, but it appears bright in the sky because of its reflective ground
- During a solar eclipse, the Moon almost completely covers the Sun. Both objects appear a similar size in the sky because the Sun is 400 times larger and farther away
- The first spacecraft to reach the Moon was in 1959, as part of the Soviet Union's lunar program
- The first manned orbital mission was NASA's Apollo 8 in 1968
- The first manned landing on the moon was in 1969, as part of the Apollo 11 mission
