The first lunar Firefly mission is scheduled to launch tomorrow and land near the Mons Latreille volcano in Mare Crisium, in the northeastern quadrant of the Moon’s near side.
Firefly sends its Blue Ghost 1 lander to Mare Crisium. It will deliver 10 NASA science payloads to the lunar surface, providing invaluable data to the lunar science community on topics comparable to regolith behavior, interior composition and more.
Firefly Blue Ghost Scientific Objectives 1
Positioning and navigation
Determining accurate locations will be useful for all the pieces from measuring distances and altitudes to making precise landings at a chosen location. NGLR will establish lunar datum markers that will allow current and future missions to precisely map and locate specific areas of the Moon. LuGRE will collect signals from GPS and Galileo to assess whether these Earth-orbiting constellations can provide reliable navigation on the Moon.
Regolith adhesion
The lunar surface is kind of a dusty landscape. Regolith dust have to be higher understood and taken into consideration when designing technologies and experiments on the lunar surface. Moon dust can impact mechanical components, degradation of Earth materials, and human health, so we want to know the way to best address its effects. RAC, EDS and LPV will help us investigate how lunar dust sticks to different materials and test the use of electromagnetism to mitigate or prevent dust accumulation.
Internal heat flow
The flow of warmth in the interior of the Moon can provide information applicable to many topics of interest to the scientific community. Data collected by LPV and LISTER could make clear the Moon’s formation history, tidal interactions, crustal thickness, volatiles, and help humans plan future exploration, including the use of the Moon’s natural resources for habitation.
Plume-surface interactions
Landing a ship on the Moon requires firing its reverse engine to reduce the landing speed. This effect creates a large cloud of dust. Believe it or not, we will learn a lot by studying these plumes, and that is exactly what SCALPSS 1.1 will do. Moreover, LISTER and LPV are pneumatic drilling and production systems that may teach us how gases and regolith interact. We can higher design our landing procedures to be more efficient (and less messy) without compromising the terrain we wish to explore, and this will teach us more about how gases and particles interact in low-gravity environments.
Earth’s magnetosphere
LEXI will use X-ray images to study Earth’s magnetosphere – the place where Earth’s magnetic field interacts with solar winds. We can use this data to inform decisions on Earth regarding weather forecasts, protect GPS and satellite communications, and prevent power outages brought on by space weather. X-ray imaging will provide us with invaluable, high-resolution images of Earth’s magnetosphere.
Temperature structure and thermal evolution
LMS will help us study the lunar crust and magnetic fields, while LISTER measures temperature and thermal conductivity, which will give us a higher picture of the Moon’s internal structure, its thermal evolution, resource identification, applications in planetary science and progress in human exploration of the Moon.
An overhead view of the pockmarked landforms on the Moon. The light falls on the curved fringe of the ridge on the left; its right edge is in shadow.
The second Firefly lunar mission includes two orders: the drop of a satellite into lunar orbit combined with delivery to the lunar surface on the far side and the delivery of a lunar orbit calibration source, scheduled for 2026.
As a part of the newly funded delivery in 2028, payloads will be sent to the Gruithuisen domes and nearby Sinus Viscositatus. The Gruithuisen Domes have long been suspected to have formed from silica-rich magma with a composition similar to granite. Granite rocks are easily formed on Earth by plate tectonics and water oceans. The Moon lacks these key ingredients, leaving lunar scientists to wonder how these domes formed and evolved over time. For the first time, as a part of this order, NASA also contracted to provide “roving” for a few of its science instruments on the lunar surface after landing. This will enable recent kinds of research to be conducted in the USA under CLPS.
NASA continues its campaign to explore more of the Moon than ever before, awarding Firefly Aerospace $179 million to conduct six experiments on the lunar surface. The fourth Firefly order will goal a landing in the Gruithuisen Domes on the near side of the Moon in 2028.
As a part of the agency’s broader campaign, Artemis Firefly will conduct a group of science experiments and technology demonstrations under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative to these lunar domes, an area of ancient lava flows, to higher understand planetary processes and evolution. Through CLPS, NASA advances our understanding of the lunar environment and helps prepare for future human missions to the lunar surface as a part of the agency’s Moon-to-Mars research approach.
NASA will be covering the Firefly launch tomorrow.
Firefly’s lunar science research ranges from characterizing Earth’s magnetosphere, to understanding lunar dust and characterizing the structure and thermal properties of the Moon’s interior, to demonstrating technologies to improve navigation and computing and a higher radiation environment
The landing field, i.e. the landing site of this mission, is situated inside the so-called Mari chissum, i.e. the Basin situated on the near side of the Moon.
It is a large basin with a diameter or width of roughly 340 miles or 550 kilometers.
This will be seen with the naked eye when the moon.


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