Two privately-built moon landers share a ride to space atop a Falcon 9 SpaceX rocket | Global News Avenue

With the near-full moon shining overhead, two companies – one U.S.-based and the other based in Japan – launched privately developed robotic lunar landers and took to the sky aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket early Wednesday A space journey.

The U.S. lander, built by Austin, Texas-based Firefly Aerospace, is called “Blue Ghost” and carries 10 precision instruments for NASA, while the Japanese spacecraft, built by Tokyo-based ispace, is called “Resilience” ”, carrying 4 instruments of its own and a small micro-detector called “Tenacious”.

The Falcon 9’s nose cone was stacked one on top of the other as it lifted off from the historic launch pad 39A on time at 1:11 a.m. EST on Wednesday. Blue Ghost, which weighs 1,033 pounds without propellant, is expected to release itself one hour and five minutes after liftoff.

The elastomeric device, which weighs about 750 pounds, is expected to deploy 21 minutes later as Falcon 9 performs a final second-stage engine fire, placing the vehicle on a different trajectory.

“Our customers have different lunar landing strategies, and Falcon 9’s capabilities allow us to put each lander into its own injection orbit to complete its mission,” said Julianna Scheiman, senior manager at SpaceX. Task.”

Landers are taking very different routes to the moon. Blue Ghost is expected to remain in Earth’s orbit for about 25 days, giving Firefly engineers time to thoroughly inspect the spacecraft’s instruments, propulsion systems and other subsystems. The spacecraft will then fire up its engines for a four-day trip to the moon and then spend 16 days in lunar orbit.

If no major problems arise, the 6.6-foot-tall, 11.5-foot-wide Blue Ghost will descend to the surface near the center of the Crisis Sea and land on four shock-absorbing legs. Its 10 scientific instruments will have two full weeks, or lunar “days,” to collect data.

“The research we collect will help unlock future space exploration while also benefiting life on Earth, providing insights into how space weather and other cosmic forces affect our planet,” said Firefly CEO Jason Kim. Planet offers new insights.”

“Every milestone we complete will provide valuable data for future missions and ultimately keep the United States and our international partners at the forefront of space exploration.”

Unlike Blue Ghost, ispace’s Resilience (also known as Hakuto-R) will travel to the moon about two days after launch, using a low-energy, fuel-saving orbit. A month later, the spacecraft will fly by the moon, using its gravity to adjust its flight path, before entering orbit about four months after launch. In two weeks, Resilience will attempt to land in the frigid Frigoris Sea.

space Launched the first Hakuto lander In late 2022, but in March of the following year, flight controllers lost contact as the spacecraft approached the lunar surface.

Investigators later determined that the onboard software misunderstood the lander’s altitude after it flew over the crater’s rim. The vehicle then ran out of propellant and crashed to the water.

ispace said the problem has been corrected, prompting the company to name its second Hakuto lander Resilience. ispace officials are optimistic about second chances.

“I think our experiments will help build lunar infrastructure that will ultimately lead to a permanent, significant human presence on the moon,” said Ron Garan, a former space shuttle astronaut and ispace CEO. U.S.

“We’re doing electrolysis experiments. We’re doing food production experiments. We also have some art installations.”

The model of the Swedish house will be transported from the rover’s lander “to be placed on the lunar surface,” Garland said. “We get to film it, and it’s also a very exciting artistic endeavor.”

Garan said the tiny detector, manufactured by ispace’s Luxembourg-based unit and measuring just 10.2 inches tall and 21.6 inches long, is “really critical to the future of our company.”

“The data that we get from the rover is very valuable to us as we continue to hone our design on the ground mobility side of things,” he said. “So, that’s very exciting as well.”

The Resilience mission is privately funded and does not receive any funding from NASA. By comparison, the development cost for the instruments on Blue Ghost was $44 million for NASA. As part of its plan, the agency agreed to pay Firefly $101 million to send it to the moon. Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) Program.

The CLPS program is designed to encourage private industry to launch agency payloads to the moon to collect needed science and engineering data before Artemis astronauts begin work on the surface near the moon’s south pole later this decade.

“NASA is investing in commercial lunar transportation services to grow the industry and support long-term lunar exploration, helping the United States remain a leader in space innovation,” said Nicola Fox, head of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.

“To date, five vendors have secured 11 lunar deliveries under CLPS and will send more than 50 instruments to various locations on the moon, including the lunar south pole. Existing CLPS contracts have a cumulative maximum contract value of $2.6 billion through 2028 No other country has done this.”

The Blue Ghost instrument will collect data on the lunar dust environment, drill into the soil beneath the lander, monitor background X-ray emissions, and test whether Earth-orbiting navigation satellites can be used near the moon and the effectiveness of computer radiation shielding. Other topics of interest.

“Before we send humans back to the moon, we’re sending a lot of science and technology ahead to prepare for that,” Fox said.

“The technology and science demonstrations on the Firefly Blue Ghost mission are critical to our ability to discover more science and are critical to ensuring the safety of our spacecraft instruments and, most importantly, the safety of our astronauts. “

The Blue Ghost mission will last about two months, King said.

“Once Blue Ghost lands on the moon, we will collect critical payload science data throughout the mission,” he said. “We will then conclude the mission by capturing the solar eclipse and lunar sunset in high-definition video before the lunar nighttime orbit for several hours.”

Toward the end of the mission, the company hopes to capture a phenomenon first seen by NASA’s Surveyor lunar lander and at least two Apollo astronauts, the so-called “horizon glow,” which is caused by sunlight combined with solar radiation Micrometeoroid impacts are caused by the interaction of stirred up small dust particles.

“Knowing that Firefly’s ‘Blue Ghost’ mission is the pinnacle of what was observed by the last Apollo astronauts to walk on the moon is a fitting tribute to their legacy,” King said.