Latest news with #BlueGhostMission1
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Metro Detroit poet's work lands on the moon, in mission to send art to lunar surface
When Diane DeCillis looks at the night sky, it feels different now than it did before. Says the metro Detroit poet, 'I think to myself, wow, something I've written is on the moon.' A poem by DeCillis landed on the moon recently as part of a digitized archive carried by Blue Ghost Mission 1, which launched in January and reached the lunar surface in early March. The mission was operated by Firefly Aerospace in partnership with NASA. DeCillis is among the writers and artists whose work is included in the Lunar Codex, an effort by Canadian physicist and author Samuel Peralta to gather a huge, multimedia collection of art by thousands of creators from across the globe and send it to the moon. Her poem 'The Artist and His Volcano' was chosen to be part of 'The Polaris Trilogy,' an anthology that now has a permanent home on the moon and is devoted to works about the sun, moon and stars. DeCillis says the poem was inspired by visionary sculptor James Turrell's epic Roden Crater project. Turrell has spent more than four decades on the ongoing giant artwork located in an extinct volcano cinder cone in Arizona's Painted Desert area. The internationally famous artist has designed what Smithsonian magazine describes as 'a series of tunnels and chambers inside to capture celestial light,' including one completed tunnel that is more than 850 feet long. Turrell's observatory for the naked eye is made to be 'most precise in about 2,000 years,' according to the Smithsonian, which notes that his friends "sometimes joke that's also when he'll finish the project.' More: May's full moon is just around the corner. When to see the Flower Moon in 2025 More: Detroit's Hannan Center called 'one of Michigan's best-kept secrets' for senior citizens DeCillis hasn't been to the Roden Crater site, but she says she was extremely inspired by it. 'The poem I wrote was out of sheer passion. I had been looking at Turrell's work an d I was just blown away by it.' The former longtime owner of Southfield's The Print Gallery, DeCillis, who is 74, has had two collections of poetry published by the Wayne State University Press. In 2015, her first collection, 'Strings Attached,' was named to the annual Michigan Notable Book list and won the 2015 Next Generation Indie Book Award for poetry. DeCillis gives her husband, Lou, credit for opening her mind and art to the grandeur of the moon and stars. 'When I married my husband, I didn't pay attention to the sky too much. I don't know if people do. But he's very interested in astromony and he had a telescope, so he'd always be showing me things in the sky,' she recounts. ' I just thought it was so cool, because it just made the world seem so much bigger…I'm thinking how could I not have noticed this.' Fast forward to a trip the couple took to Florida. She wanted to visit an art museum, but he wanted to go to the Kennedy Space Center visitor complex. 'I'm thinking, oh boy, it's going to be boring,' says DeCillis, describing a tour that included getting to see control rooms and more. Then DeCillis saw something that hit home emotionally. 'Ultimately you end up in this room with this gigantic curtain or metal door…and the door slowly opens and what do you see? The Saturn 5 rocket ship,' she says, referring to the mammoth vehicles. was used to send astronauts to the Moon, including the first landing in 1969. 'I literally fell to my knees and starting weeping. And I looked at my husband and said, 'This is the opposite of the word no.' DeCillis saw what she describes as 'a cosmic' yes in the fact that this mammoth was something human beings thought they could – and did – navigate to the moon. She has felt similarly impressed by Turrell's Roden Crater project and is looking for a way to contact the artist about her poem's recent journey. DeCillis is working now on her third book of poetry. She also expects to have her work included in a second lunar mission later this year. In 'The Artist and His Volcano,' she writes eloquently about 'that first night you were humbled into innocence/drawn into the rapturous sky realizing you could not hold/the immensity of space.' For poetry and the celestial world, the sky really is the limit. Contact Detroit Free Press pop culture critic Julie Hinds at jhinds@ This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Metro Detroiter's poem placed in digitized archive located on the moon
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Here's Why Intuitive Machines Stock Is a buy Before May 14
It has won four NASA contracts to put lunar landers on the Moon, the first two being partial successes. It has also won a $4.8 billion contract to build a communications network between Earth and the Moon. The next earnings report should say how it plans to improve its landers and begin building its network. Call it "strike two" for Intuitive Machines (NASDAQ: LUNR). I was probably as excited as any other space investor when, early last year, Intuitive Machines landed a U.S. spacecraft on the Moon for the first time in more than 50 years. Like many other space investors, I shrugged off the fact that the company's Nova-C class lunar lander didn't exactly "stick the landing," instead toppling over and ending up on its side. It was their first attempt, after all, and they did at least get the spacecraft down in one piece, even if not entirely vertical. Where to invest $1,000 right now? Our analyst team just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks to buy right now. Continue » That was then, though, and this is now. One year after its first attempt, Intuitive landed a second Nova-C on the Moon in March. And just like the first lander, this one too ended up on its side, suggesting there may be a flaw in the lunar lander's design, in its software -- or both. Investors are understandably disappointed in the company's technical performance, and Intuitive stock is down nearly 40% over the last couple of months as a result. And yet, I'm still convinced Intuitive Machines stock is a "buy." Here's why. Why is that? Listen, I won't sugarcoat the company's troubles. I won't call them "failures," but I certainly can't call these flubbed landings "successes." They are serious setbacks for Intuitive Machines. The company's at real risk of squandering its lead in the race to establish a track record for successful delivery of payloads to the Moon for NASA, especially given that its rival Firefly Aerospace nailed its Blue Ghost Mission 1 landing on the Moon just days before Intuitive not-quite-failed. As a result, NASA now has two lunar landing companies to choose from in awarding future contracts, only one of which has a 100% successful track record on Moon landings. And it isn't Intuitive Machines. That said, NASA has already gone ahead and awarded Intuitive Machines two more landing contracts, which give the company two more chances to work the bugs out of its lander, its software (or both). So long as it doesn't squander the opportunity, there's every reason to believe Intuitive Machines can still win this space race. And if it succeeds, there's every reason to believe the company will win even more landing contracts from NASA, keeping this Moon-landing business up and running. But that's not all. In fact, it's not even the most important reason why investors should want to own Intuitive Machines stock. The most important reason to be optimistic about Intuitive Machines stock is the fact that NASA awarded the company a much bigger $4.8 billion contract to build and operate a space communications network between Earth and the Moon for the next 10 years. When that contract was first announced, it sparked a four-month stock-price run that lifted Intuitive shares as high as $23 a share, nearly three times what the stock sells for today. And that contract has absolutely nothing to do with whether Intuitive's landers land straight up or face-plant when they reach the Moon. It's a completely different line of business and worth a lot more money to Intuitive than it will get from launching landers to the Moon at $100 million a pop. Intuitive Machines reported first-quarter earnings more than a month ago, meaning investors still have a couple of months to wait before the next earnings report rolls around -- probably on or about May 14. (In 2024, May 14 was the date the company reported Q2 earnings. Although Intuitive hasn't announced a date for this year's Q2 report, logically, it should arrive around about the same date as last year.) Once that earnings report does come out, I'll personally be very interested to hear what management has to say about any efforts it's making to re-design Nova-C to ensure that the "third time's the charm," and its next landing attempt in 2026 will be more successful than its two previous tries. But I'll be even more interested in hearing about the company's timeline for rolling out its Near Space Network for NASA and starting to rake in revenue for providing communications between Earth and the Moon. I won't be the only one listening in, however, and my hunch is that, so long as management gives good answers to both questions, its stock will perform well even in the absence of profits (which no one is expecting Intuitive to report for another couple of years after all). In the meantime, I plan to spend the next couple of months waiting and watching for pullbacks in the stock, such as the big one we saw recently when the stock market panicked over President Trump's tariffs plan. It's precisely because I expect Intuitive Machines stock to go up after earnings that I want to buy the stock on the cheap before those earnings come out. Before you buy stock in Intuitive Machines, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Intuitive Machines wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $610,327!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $667,581!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 882% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 161% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of April 28, 2025 Rich Smith has positions in Intuitive Machines. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Here's Why Intuitive Machines Stock Is a buy Before May 14 was originally published by The Motley Fool Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
26-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
'We learned so much that we didn't know': Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost moon lander mission was full of surprises
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado — Lessons learned and on-the-spot surprises from the first fully successful commercial lunar lander mission bolsters the chances of long-term robotic and human operations on the moon. The Firefly Aerospace Blue Ghost Mission 1 safely touched down on March 2 within the targeted Mare Crisium landing zone. Plopping down on its four landing legs, the spacecraft delivered ten science instruments and technology demonstration gear through the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative. Blue Ghost completed more than 14 days of surface operations during 346 hours of daylight, stretching its lifetime for a little over 5 hours into the super-chilly lunar night. On moon landing day, "I should have had a heart monitor. My heart was racing. But I had full confidence in the team," recalled Jason Kim, Firefly's Chief Executive Officer during the 40th Space Symposium held here April 7-10 by the Space Foundation at The Broadmoor. The trek to the moon involved seven major engine burns, doing so with the company's in-house engine technology that performed with precision, Kim said. "So we're going to use that engine over and over." A key to Blue Ghost's spot-on landing was plotting out the spacecraft's changing mass properties, to ascertain the craft's constantly changing center of gravity, said Kim. The team was smart enough to design the vehicle with four propellant tanks, side by side. "So having that balanced design really helped land on the moon and stick that landing," Kim told the audience. "It's just what commercial companies do. They come up with creative solutions and innovation to attack the problem." Firefly also conducted robust testing that included 500 hours of rehearsals using multiple simulations to design the system, he said. Another checklist success was the Blue Ghost's autonomous landing. "There were no communication outages that we had to worry about. No latencies we had to worry about or false alarms from human error. It was just doing everything autonomously in the last hour. That's what made it successful … but also that's why it was so challenging," Kim said. As a big believer of autonomy, Kim said the company is doubling-down on that capability. "All of our spacecraft going forward are going to have some level of autonomy," he said as "that's where the future is going." After landing, Blue Ghost immediately got to work. Kim spotlighted two payloads, the LISTER drill to probe the moon's subsurface and the Lunar PlanetVac that successfully collected, transferred, and sorted lunar regolith from the moon using pressurized nitrogen gas. It proved to be a low cost, low mass solution for future robotic sample collection. LISTER was developed jointly by Texas Tech University and Honeybee Robotics, a Blue Origin company that also provided the Lunar PlanetVac. The LISTER drill, plowing down an unprecedented three feet instead of a projected 10 feet, "did hit some really hard rock formations," related Kim, "and that's the whole discovery. We learned so much that we didn't know." A surprising finding from Blue Ghost was the lunar temperature. "Nobody has ever done noon operations on the lunar surface. We found out that it's hotter than expected and modeled." It actually starts sooner and it lasts longer, Kim said, observing that the temperature swings on the moon "were really, really crazy." Read more: Watch sparks fly as Blue Ghost lander drills into the moon (video) Adding to the temperature revelation was another Blue Ghost surprise finding. "We didn't know we were going to land next to a huge crater. The sun does hit us from one side and heats us up. But the sun reflected off one side of that crater and hit us from the back. So we actually got hotter because of that reason," said Kim. "So there's so much new discovery that we found and we can pass that forward to other CLPS missions." All the lunar landing components operated through the thermal swings, Kim said, even though they exceeded their thermal limits. "So in the future, we know we need to model the geographic features of the moon a lot better with higher fidelity," Kim added. Blue Ghost mission controllers came up with a clever "beat the heat" idea during lunar operations. When the lander was going through lunar noon and was over-heating, Earth operators wanted to assure radio operations were maintained. Blue Ghost's rectangular antenna on the lander's top deck was gimbaled in such a way as to shade the area in which the radio was contained. "We're from Texas so we know about shade," Kim said. Indeed, that "made in the shade" approach got the radio back into operational configuration. Blue Ghost's five-hour sojourn into the lunar night also provided some takeaway messages. "NASA wanted us to turn on the payloads, so we did, and we actually got some payload data," Kim said. "The LISTER was the last payload standing. That was pretty spectacular." Information gleaned from the short foray into lunar night, said Kim, shows that there are ways to design lunar lander systems in a modular way to survive and thrive in the night. The Blue Ghost batteries used on the lander exceeded expectations. Taking a modular approach, Kim said more batteries could be added in the future to sustain specific components, enabling them to live on through the cold lunar night. "We could add radiators as well," he said. Looking ahead, Firefly is ramping up for annual missions to the moon. The team has begun qualifying and assembling flight hardware for Blue Ghost Mission-2, which will utilize Firefly's Blue Ghost lander stacked on the group's Elytra Dark orbital vehicle for operations in lunar orbit and on the far side of the moon. Read more: Watch the sun set over the moon in epic video from private Blue Ghost lunar lander RELATED STORIES: — 'We're on the moon!' Private Blue Ghost moon lander aces historic lunar landing for NASA — Watch sparks fly as Blue Ghost lander drills into the moon (video) — Watch the sun set over the moon in epic video from private Blue Ghost lunar lander That far side lander, also designed to operate for 14 days on the moon, is based on a slightly incremental design of the Blue Ghost-1 mission, Kim said. "It will require us to have a tandem orbiter, to provide communications to and from the Earth," he said, "so we're going to be operating two spacecraft simultaneously." That moon orbiter is expected to last quite a few years," Kim noted, "so we're already looking at putting things like high-resolution cameras on it." In appraising the Blue Ghost Mission-1, Kim saluted the company's 750 employees that include the 60-person lander team's commitment and bold approaches taken. "For some of them, this was their first spacecraft … never having built and operated a spacecraft, but they nailed it," said Kim. The $101 million mission called upon the team to do whatever it took to out-think the problems, he said, and keep the program on cost and schedule. "They are unstoppable," he concluded.
Associated Press
04-04-2025
- Science
- Associated Press
Space-ng Demonstrates AstroVision and Lunar Optical Navigation at the 40th Space Symposium
Space-ng optical navigation software provides terrain relative navigation, hazard detection, and attitude determination from lunar orbit to the surface, as demonstrated by the recent success of Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost Mission 1 (BGM1) landing at Mare Crisium. The technology used in this mission, and its capabilities regarding other computer vision applications for space systems, will be presented in video and interactive displays at the Space-ng Booth #SS208. AstroVision hardware, currently undergoing qualification testing, will also be demonstrated at the Space-ng booth. AstroVision was developed by Space-ng to host the powerful software that will drive next generation computer vision applications for space systems. This includes the spacecraft equivalent of level 5 self driving, proven by Firefly on BGM1, with optical navigation support from Space-ng. Attendees at the 40th Space Symposium will include Space-ng Founder and CEO Ethan Rublee as well as Co-Founder and Chief Engineer Steve Bailey. Space-ng is on a mission to provide computer vision, optical navigation, and autonomous operations across the solar system, as well as returning cinematic experiences and imagery from pioneering space missions. Space-ng's Role in the Historic Firefly Blue Ghost Lunar Lander Mission On March 2nd, as Blue Ghost descended to Mare Crisium, Space-ng's software processed camera images, comparing them to a 3D, geospatially accurate, onboard lunar digital terrain map and dynamically correcting the vehicle's navigation solution. In the final moments before touchdown, the system identified hazardous terrain like slopes, rocks, and craters and autonomously re-directed the lander to a safe site - ensuring a soft, precise landing. Future Vision Based Navigation Systems In future applications, Space-ng software will be hosted on Space-ng's AstroVision hardware. AstroVision combines advanced optical sensors, high-speed remote data transmission, high-performance computing, and neural engine processing to enable the use of computer vision and machine learning algorithms using physics-based visual reasoning. AstroVision provides quaternions and state vectors from Earth orbit to the surface of the Moon absent of GPS and radio communication, supporting Alt PNT cislunar spaceflight, as well as lunar orbit, landing and surface operations. AstroVision combines Space-ng's expertise in vision-based navigation software with space-qualified hardware that includes an 8 core CPU as well as hardware acceleration including an Image Signal Processor (ISP), Digital Signal Processor (DSP), Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), and an AI/Neural Network Engine. AstroVision includes up to 12 configurable high-resolution Camera Modules, each with sensors and optics tailored to users needs, and each located up to 15 meters from the AstroVision Base Unit. This multi-headed vision system provides all-sky coverage eliminating the need for spacecraft maneuvers or attitude constraints in acquiring and tracking the Sun or stars. This innovative approach to position and attitude determination uses both bright objects like the Sun, Earth, and Moon and dim objects, such as stars and distant planets, to produce a precise state vector solution without relying on conventional sun sensors, star trackers, GPS, two-way-radio ranging, or ground-in-the-loop approaches. Each of the twelve AstroVision global or rolling shutter imagers comes with a user-selectable field of view, 12 Mpixel resolution, up to 6 Gbps bandwidth, and internal IMU, weighing in at only 150 grams apiece. The AstroVision Hardware and Software Ecosystem Space-ng is taking orders for AstroVision hardware, with first flight hardware delivery in Q3 of 2025 and with EDU hardware now available. AstroVision hardware supports many use cases ranging from science imaging and video documentation to spacecraft automation such as rendezvous, proximity operations, manufacturing, assembly, security, and space situational awareness. As a software-defined system with an open architecture model with standard APIs, the flight software may be licensed from Space-ng, or developed by the customer to suit their needs. AstroVision comes with hardware and software supporting each stage of the spacecraft development life cycle, including design & development, test & integration, mission operations, and overall cyber-security. This includes real time simulation, electrical ground support equipment, command and telemetry, and Over the Air (OTA) updates. Space-ng can provide dedicated support through delivery and integration, or all the way to mission success. 'Optical navigation is critical in situations where you need precise maneuvering and a GPS signal is not available,' said Will Coogan, Chief Engineer at Firefly Aerospace. 'We chose Space-ng for the Blue Ghost mission to the Moon because their software provides a precision landing location on the lunar surface that avoids hazardous obstacles like rocks and craters. Space-ng provides excellent support and expertise, and we look forward to working with them for future missions to the Moon and beyond!' Media Contact: Please contact [email protected] for additional requests for information or media contact. Space-ng is developing revolutionary machine vision hardware and software for Civil, Commercial, and Defense customers. To learn more about Space-ng visit where you'll find the answers to your most common questions as well as contact information on how to customize AstroVision for your mission.
Yahoo
24-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Firefly Aerospace selects Blue Origin unit to explore volcanic formations on moon
(Reuters) - Firefly Aerospace has partnered with Blue Origin's Honeybee Robotics to supply a rover for its third lunar mission in 2028 to study the Gruithuisen Domes, the Texas-based rocket maker said on Monday. The agreement with Honeybee Robotics — a unit of Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin — underscores a trend of leveraging established space technology to advance human understanding and exploration of the lunar surface in an increasingly competitive market. The Gruithuisen Domes, located on the moon's near side, are unusual volcanic formations believed to be rich in silica — a composition rare on the lunar surface — and studying them could unlock clues about the moon's geological history and potential resources for future human missions. Firefly's first lunar lander mission, Blue Ghost Mission 1, successfully landed on the moon earlier this month, delivering 10 NASA instruments and operating for two weeks — longer than any prior commercial lunar mission — before concluding on March 16. The upcoming mission, part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative, will use Firefly's Blue Ghost lander and Elytra Dark orbital vehicle, alongside the Honeybee Robotics rover, to explore the domes, building on the success of its debut effort, Firefly said.
