Early Wednesday marks the start of a new year of lunar research as two robotic landers and a tiny rover are anticipated to set out for the moon.
At 1:11 a.m. ET, a SpaceX rocket is scheduled to launch two independent, uncrewed missions to the lunar surface from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
One of those projects, created by Firefly Aerospace, a Texas-based business, intends to place a lander named Blue Ghost in the Martian Crisium, a 340-mile-wide basin on the moon believed to be the location of an old asteroid impact.
The other project, which is being operated by iSpace, a Japanese business, uses a mini rover named Tenacious and a lander named Resilience. Their intended landing spot is in the far north of the moon, in an area known as Mare Frigoris.
This will be the second time that iSpace has tried to land a spacecraft on the moon. When its Hakuto lander abruptly accelerated during its descent and landed on the lunar surface in 2023, its first attempt was unsuccessful.
Compared to Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander, which is anticipated to arrive to the moon in 45 days, the ispace lander and rover are anticipated to travel a longer, less energy-intensive route, arriving in four or five months.
Blue Ghost is scheduled to spend roughly two weeks collecting data on the lunar surface while carrying ten NASA science instruments.
The mission is a component of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, which saw the agency award contracts to a number of commercial businesses to transport technology, science experiments, and other items to the lunar surface.
NASA’s larger Artemis mission, which intends to eventually send humans back to the moon, includes such initiatives.
According to Nicola Fox, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, the Blue Ghost lander’s mission will help guide future Artemis journeys with astronaut crews.
For example, it might provide fresh information about the moon’s topography and landscape, particularly what to anticipate at the lunar south pole, where the crewed Artemis missions will touch down. The lunar terrain composition in the Mare Crisium region, where Blue Ghost is anticipated to land, is believed to be more reflective of the moon overall than most of the landing locations humans visited during NASA’s Apollo mission.
During a news briefing on Tuesday, Fox stated that this is a scientifically strategic and productive site that we focused on because our future astronaut explorers will be able to use human intuition to be able to select up scientifically intriguing items and bring them back to Earth.
A device that will assist researchers in measuring the exact distance between Earth and the moon, another that will investigate the degree to which lunar dust adheres to various materials, and a third that can gather and examine samples of lunar soil using a burst of compressed gas are among the scientific tools that Blue Ghost will transport to the moon.
Jason Kim, CEO of Firefly Aerospace, stated in the briefing that every milestone we accomplish will yield important data for next missions and, in the end, put the United States and its international partners at the forefront of space exploration.
How much each firm spent for the joint orbital journey was not disclosed by SpaceX.
The Blue Ghost lander is scheduled to be released approximately one hour and five minutes after liftoff, with the ispace lander and rover following approximately half an hour later, according to Julianna Scheiman, director of NASA science missions at SpaceX.
At 12:30 a.m. ET, the ANASA webcast of the Falcon 9 rocket launch will start.
Although there is a 90% chance of favorable weather during launch, SpaceX officials stated that backup plans are still available through January 20.