CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A personal U.S. spacecraft sure for the moon has captured gorgeous photos of Earth one week into its flight.
Nonetheless circling Earth, Firefly Aerospace’s lunar lander fired its thrusters Thursday to place it on a path to achieve the moon in over a month. Dubbed Blue Ghost, the spacecraft beamed again pictures and video of the Blue Marble, our planet. The Texas firm launched the photographs Friday.
It carries experiments for NASA, a part of the area company’s effort to return astronauts to the moon this decade.
Blue Ghost is considered one of two lunar landers launched from Florida by SpaceX on Jan. 15. It’s focusing on a moon landing on March 2. The opposite lander is sponsored by the Japanese firm ispace and taking a fair longer route, with a touchdown in late Might or early June.
It’s the primary moonshot for Firefly and the second for ispace, which crashed its first lander into the moon in 2023. Tokyo-based ispace’s newest lander, Resilience, continues to be orbiting Earth and performing all its maneuvers to shut in on the moon.
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