Spacecraft captures glorious view of Earth
A private US spacecraft bound for the moon has captured stunning images of Earth one week into its flight.
Still circling Earth, Firefly Aerospace’s lunar lander fired its thrusters last Thursday to put it on a path to reach the moon in over a month. Dubbed Blue Ghost, the spacecraft beamed back photos and video of the Blue Marble, our planet. The Texas company released the images Friday.
It carries experiments for NASA, part of the space agency’s effort to return astronauts to the moon this decade.
Blue Ghost is one of two lunar landers launched from Florida by SpaceX on 15 January. It’s targeting a moon touchdown on 2 March. The other lander is sponsored by the Japanese company ispace and is taking an even longer route, with a landing in late May or early June.
It’s the first moonshot for Firefly and the second for ispace, which crashed its first lander into the moon in 2023. Tokyo-based ispace’s latest lander, Resilience, is still orbiting Earth and performing all its manoeuvres to close in on the moon.
Still circling Earth, Firefly Aerospace’s lunar lander fired its thrusters last Thursday to put it on a path to reach the moon in over a month. Dubbed Blue Ghost, the spacecraft beamed back photos and video of the Blue Marble, our planet. The Texas company released the images Friday.
It carries experiments for NASA, part of the space agency’s effort to return astronauts to the moon this decade.
Blue Ghost is one of two lunar landers launched from Florida by SpaceX on 15 January. It’s targeting a moon touchdown on 2 March. The other lander is sponsored by the Japanese company ispace and is taking an even longer route, with a landing in late May or early June.
It’s the first moonshot for Firefly and the second for ispace, which crashed its first lander into the moon in 2023. Tokyo-based ispace’s latest lander, Resilience, is still orbiting Earth and performing all its manoeuvres to close in on the moon.
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