NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Views Blue Ghost on Moon’s Surface

NASA · March 25

1 min read

Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)

NASA’s LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) imaged Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 lunar lander on the Moon’s surface the afternoon of March 2, not quite 10 hours after the spacecraft landed.

Black and white image of Firefly's Blue Ghost lunar lander landing site on the Moon. The gray cratered surface of the Moon is visible from an oblique angle above. The lander is a tiny white dot in the center of the image, with a square white box outlining it.

Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 lunar lander, which appears in this image from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter as a bright pixel casting a shadow in the middle of the white box, reached the surface of the Moon on March 2 at 3:34 a.m. EST.

NASA/Goddard/Arizona State University

The delivery is part of NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative and Artemis campaign. This is the first CLPS delivery for Firefly, and their first Moon landing.

LRO is managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. Launched on June 18, 2009, LRO has collected a treasure trove of data with its seven powerful instruments, making an invaluable contribution to our knowledge about the Moon. NASA is returning to the Moon with commercial and international partners to expand human presence in space and bring back new knowledge and opportunities.

More on this story from Arizona State University’s LRO Camera website

Media Contact:
Nancy N. Jones
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.