Firefly Aerospace Successfully lands on the Moon! Two Weeks on Mare Crisium - Science BEGINS! - Today In Space

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(00:00):
The Firefly aerospace justbecame the first commercial

(00:06):
company in history to complete afully successful moon landing.
Congratulations to the entireteam. This is such an incredible
need for Firefly, NASA, ournation and the world as we paved
the way for a lasting lunarpresence.

(00:30):
Welcome back to Today In Space.I am, as always, your space
science podcast host from theEast Coast, Alex giorfanos, and
today we're talking about thehistoric landing of Firefly
aerospace's blue ghost onemission at 3:34am Eastern Time,
Firefly's robotic lander toucheddown in Mayor chrisium and

(00:53):
solidified the Firefly team inspace history as the first
successful commercial company toEver land on the moon. This
mission was packed with lunarpayloads, excitement and big
steps forward for spaceprogress. So buckle up and let's
dive in. Thanks for joining us.

(01:16):
The blue ghost mission, one alsoknown as ghost riders in the sky
is part of NASA's clips program,or commercial lunar payload
services. It was designed toembolden private companies in
America to develop their ownservice to deliver science and
technology to the moon that'llbe critical for the future of

(01:37):
human space travel and humanlandings on the moon. You might
be asking, Why do this? Well,consider that a fully developed
NASA mission that's designed forthe best tech possible to make
sure that failure is not anoption, means that mission is
going to be very expensive, andif a NASA lander will cost $110
million let's say, to build atNASA's specs. What if you spent

(02:00):
a 10th of that on 10 separatemissions and let American
companies learn along the way,not only would American
companies benefit, but NASAcould potentially have five to
10 times as many launches to themoon and opportunities to test
technology than they could do bythemselves. So Firefly aerospace

(02:22):
successfully landed on the moonon first try for 110 the cost
that NASA would have. Theadventure began January 15, 2025
as a SpaceX Falcon nine rocketlaunched from Kennedy Space
Center with blue ghost one asthe payload, carrying 10 NASA
instruments. Blue ghost traveledover a month and a half to the

(02:43):
moon before reaching lunar orbitand targeting its touchdown in
Mayor chrisium, an ancient lunarbasin 500 kilometers wide on the
near side of them on March 2,2:20am, Eastern Time, the
broadcast for the landing ofblue ghost one began, and I
managed to crawl myself out ofbed get some chai tea and a

(03:03):
snack to watch it live. We'veintested a live stream Moon
Landing hangout online, whichwas just fun to try. And I've
been wanting to get back to livestreaming for a long time, but
inspired by some friends of minewho are streaming all the time,
I just dove in and gave it atry. And while I still have a
lot of work to do and some ofthe same problems still exist,

(03:24):
we can bring back launchhangouts again. It's something
we did years ago on the podcast,and I'm looking forward to doing
that. So make sure to follow usToday In Space pod on Instagram
and X Today In Space on ticktock and blue sky and Today In
Space on YouTube for morehangouts in the future. So make
sure to jump in the chat, say hiand bring your questions. But

(03:46):
exciting note aside, let's diveinto the timeline here. So at
2:49am Eastern Time, after someamazing views of the lunar
surface from orbit, blue ghostone completed its descent orbit
burn to begin a controlleddescent from over 100,000 meters
in altitude, or 328,000 feet.The engine stayed off to coast

(04:10):
for another 30 minutes, and at3:22am Eastern Time, the power
descent was initiated this nineminute burn using all engines
used de Sousa guidance, a fullyautonomous engine firing that
reduced blue ghosts velocityfrom 1700 to 40 meters per
second or 3800 miles per hourdown to just 90 miles per hour.

(04:34):
And the system, at this point,was running fully autonomously,
while not AI. It is a powerfulautomatic procedure powered by a
human developed approach withJesus guidance, from whom it was
named after, and the last chanceto back out was just after the
descent. Orbit Insertion wasstarted during that nine hour
descent orbit insertion. So atthis point in the mission, it

(04:56):
was all up to the automatedsystem, and it was make or
break. But at 330 2am EasternTime, the power descent
completed, and the specter RCSthrusters performed the final
descent using pulses to drop thevelocity to only one meter per
second before touchdown. Bluegoes had multiple sensors on
board to know that it hadlanded, including vision

(05:17):
navigation throw switches on thefoot pads from contact and a
gravimetric sensor to verify thegravity on the moon based on the
altitude that they were at, andat 3:34am
Eastern Time, blue ghost hadsuccessfully touched down on the
lunar surface, and Fireflyaerospace became the first
commercial company tosuccessfully land on the moon.

(05:40):
But it wasn't just Fireflyaerospace that was successful,
but NASA and all the people thatworked across all 10 of those
payloads under the clipsprogram, was a big day for the
American space program, and thefirst of many missions under the
clips program to empowerAmerican companies to do what

(06:01):
NASA has so gloriously donebefore with the ALA program
going to the moon, and we don'tneed to wait long for the next
one, as the intuitive machines Iam to mission with their Nova C
lander is expected to land onthe south pole of the Moon on
March 6, and that Athena landerwill give its next shot At
touching down on the moon, andafter the first low res image

(06:24):
from the lander came in about 20to 30 minutes later, we closed
up the Hangout stream and Icrawled back into bed for a few
more hours of rest before theday began, I could only imagine
what the Firefly aerospace teammust have felt, what a rush that
must have Been to successfullyland on the moon on your first
attempt after just being at itfor two years, hardcore. I bet

(06:47):
that adrenaline crash later wascrazy. What about the science on
now that the blue ghost onemission is on the moon, the
science begins, and right now,early reports show that all the
instruments were operational,and they have basically 14 days
of sunlight to test and getreadouts from the instruments,
and that'll be broken up intotwo phases, and they got to get

(07:09):
this done and started before thelunar night sets in during this
continuing lunar cycle. Now, ifyou want to learn more about the
instrument on board blue ghostone, you can go to
fireflyspace.com, but somehighlights from the 10
instruments on board are Lexi anx ray imager, which is scanning
solar wind interactions, orLuger, which is testing GPS and

(07:33):
Galileo nav satellite signals onthe lunar surface. Lister is
preparing to drill into themoon's crust to measure lunar
subsurface heat. Scalps capturedfootage of lunar dust during
landing to help scientistsunderstand the plume effects.
Because lunar dust is really thebiggest problem that we have

(07:55):
going to the moon. It getseverywhere. It's terrible. We
talked about this during thelaunch Hangout, but most of the
Apollo astronauts that went upthere, if not everybody,
complained of, you know, airwayand nasal issues and basically,
lunar dust gets literallyeverywhere, and that's even
through an astronaut space suitthat is ideally pressurized in a

(08:17):
way that they're able to operatein the vacuum of space. But
other science on here, like rackRAC is studying how lunar dust
sticks to materials, which isgoing to be really important for
us to understand how this isgoing to work for astronaut
space suits and equipment ingeneral. And it doesn't stop
there. There's plenty of otherscience payloads on there,
including others, like copernicspaces, digital art gallery

(08:40):
that's on board there. So anyonein the web, three space, nfts
cryptocurrency, that's a prettybig thing. And it's actually not
the first NFT digital artwork tobe sent to the moon. Intuitive
machines is I am one mission hadartwork on there as well. And I
expect that to continue. Andit's pretty cool, definitely
futuristic. And I wonder howthat would work. Is that going

(09:00):
to be something for us as like agoal post, a trophy to win as we
get back to the moon, whereyou'll be able to go up there
and then tap into that digitalMuseum, essentially, and have
all this amazing stuff there forus waiting. Sounds like a pretty
cool reason to go back to themoon, among many others. So what
to expect this week, well, moreimages, videos and science. The

(09:24):
payloads are beginning. Thescience has started, and we've
already received the image fromMayor Chris Iam with the Learn
lunar surface in front theshadow of blue ghost from the
sun behind it, and then Earth inthe background behind the
shadow. Really, reallybeautiful. Then NASA and Firefly
shared the landing video fromorbit, the full descent that's
worth checking out, that'll beon NASA plus or Firefly's

(09:46):
YouTube page. And then thisweek, March 3, Firefly and NASA
should be holding a pressconference, if they haven't
already, and that'll break downthe first data and how the
spacecraft, lander and all thepayloads are doing. Then march
3, key instruments, like Lister,will drill. And then the.
Airless collection system willbegin analyzing and basic
science begins. And then March 6intuitive machines, Athena

(10:06):
lander for I am two, it said thetouchdown near the lunar south
pole, which is where the nexthuman activity is going to
happen with the NASA Artemismission. And so we wish the im
two mission team lots of luck ontheir second attempt landing on
the moon. You guys were so closelast time. Let's stick the
landing. Good luck in the March9, blue ghosts surface mission

(10:27):
should wrap up phase one. That'swhere teams are going to start
prepping the next week for theincoming lunar darkness and
finish up all the scientificpayloads and give its best
chance at surviving the next 14days of lunar darkness, and that
wraps up today's episode ofToday In Space. Thank you for
joining us on the All ThingsSpace Science Podcast. If you

(10:49):
enjoyed this deep dive, makesure to subscribe and follow us
on social media for the latestin space flight science and the
journey to the moon and beyond.We'll be hanging out for the
intuitive machines Athena moonlanding on March 6. So make sure
to follow us there. Hop into thechat and say hi, and don't
forget to bring in yourquestions. We'll be doing live Q
and A anytime we hang out. Sobring it until next time. Keep

(11:11):
Looking Up, stay curious, andmake sure to spread love and
spread science. Be well. We'llsee you next time you

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Firefly Aerospace Successfully lands on the Moon! Two Weeks on Mare Crisium - Science BEGINS!

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