WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost Mission 1, carrying a suite of NASA science and technology payloads to the Moon, touched down on the lunar surface on Sunday.
After launching from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on January 15, the Blue Ghost lander landed near a volcanic feature called Mons Latreille within Mare Crisium, a more than 300-mile-wide basin located in the northeast quadrant of the Moon's near side.
After landing, Blue Ghost is scheduled to perform surface commissioning with health checks on each subsystem. Once completed, the lander will be ready to perform its payload operations and science demonstrations.
Aboard the mission are a suite of technology and science payloads as part of the U.S. space agency's Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative and Artemis campaign. These instruments aim to help the agency develop capabilities needed to explore the Moon under Artemis and in advance of human missions on the lunar surface.
The scientific instruments aim to test and demonstrate lunar subsurface drilling technology, regolith sample collection capabilities, global navigation satellite system abilities, radiation tolerant computing, and lunar dust mitigation methods.
The data captured on space could also benefit humans on Earth by providing insights into how space weather and other cosmic forces impact Earth, according to NASA.
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