Latest news with #SheaFerring
Yahoo
08-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Lunar Lander Trips and Dies Inside South Pole Crater
Houston-based space company Intuitive Machines' Athena lunar lander isn't doing so hot. The lander made its attempt at a landing near the Moon's Mons Mouton, a flat-topped mountain roughly 100 miles from the south pole, around noon on Thursday. But things didn't quite go as planned. The lander touched down sideways within a crater near the Moon's south pole, causing it to tip over. The company's predecessor, Odyssey, suffered a strikingly similar fate last year. "We don't believe we're in the correct attitude on the surface of the Moon yet again," Intuitive Machines CEO Steve Altemus announced during a Thursday press conference. An image released by the company today shows the toppled spacecraft with a half-lit Earth glinting in the background. It's a bittersweet resting place for what could've been the second successful landing on the Moon in less than three days. And as far as Intuitive Machines is concerned, it's officially game over. As the Associated Press reports, the company didn't waste any time, declaring Athena's death less than 24 hours after it touched down. According to telemetry beamed back by the spacecraft, the lander missed its intended landing spot roughly 100 miles from the Moon's south pole by more than 800 feet. That's in part due to it autonomously trying to avoid hazards on the cratered surface. Fortunately, the team was able to activate several scientific experiments before shutting down Athena's systems for good, per the AP. But thanks to its extremely unfortunate orientation, it's unlikely that it'll be able to get enough solar energy to power its instruments, which include a drill, a drone, and three rovers. "With the direction of the Sun, the orientation of the solar panels, and extreme cold temperatures in the crater, Intuitive Machines does not expect Athena to recharge," the team declared in an update. While Athena has already been written off, Texas-based startup Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lander fared much better. It successfully touched down on the lunar surface on Sunday, and sent back imagery showing its surroundings, the Mare Crisium, a massive basin on the Moon's near side. "With the hardest part behind us, Firefly looks forward to completing more than 14 days of surface operations, again raising the bar for commercial cislunar capabilities," said Firefly CTO Shea Ferring in a statement. Meanwhile, Intuitive Machines is dealing with some serious fallout following its second failed landing in just two years. As the New York Times reports, the company's shares fell 20 percent on Thursday. The stock price is down over 50 percent over the last month. Nonetheless, Altemus sees the situation as a glass half full. "Any time that you ship a spacecraft to Florida for flight and end up a week later operating on the Moon, I declare that a success," he said during a post-landing news conference. It's an unfortunate development for NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, which contracts private companies to develop more affordable ways to deliver scientific payloads to the Moon's surface. As the NYT points out, there have been four missions under the program so far, and only one appears to have been a success. Those four missions include both of Intuitive Machines' failed attempts, as well as Firefly's successful touchdown. The fourth, Astrobotic's Peregrine spacecraft, suffered a failure during launch early last year, causing it to lose its propellant drift helplessly through space. Astrobotic eventually decided to have it burn up in the Earth's atmosphere instead of venturing onward. More on the lander: There's Some Serious Drama on the Moon
Yahoo
03-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
American Spacecraft Touches Down on Moon, Sends Back Photos
Texas-based space company Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lander has become the second private spacecraft in history to softly touch down on the Moon's surface. In fact, the company claimed in an announcement that it was the first to "successfully" do so, effectively arguing that Intuitive Machines' Odysseus lander failed when it toppled over during its attempt last year (Odysseus failed to reestablish connection with the Earth a month after landing on the Moon). Firefly's car-sized lander touched down within its target landing zone in the Mare Crisium, a massive basin on the Moon's near side. It's since sent back several photographs, showing it settled on the rocky surface with the Earth glinting in the distance. One image even shows its own shadow as the Sun slowly rises. It's yet another sign that the Moon's surface is back within reach over half a century after NASA's Apollo program launched its final mission — and building buzz around the space agency's first crewed lunar mission since then, which is still tentatively scheduled for mid-2027. Blue Ghost will spend the next lunar day — the equivalent of 14 Earth days — studying the lunar environment on behalf of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. On March 14, it'll take high-definition images of the Earth eclipsing the Sun from its perspective. On Earth, onlookers will be able to observe a total lunar eclipse, which will turn the Moon a deep red. "With the hardest part behind us, Firefly looks forward to completing more than 14 days of surface operations, again raising the bar for commercial cislunar capabilities," said Firefly CTO Shea Ferring in a statement. Blue Ghost carries ten different scientific instruments on behalf of NASA. Its "surface operations include lunar subsurface drilling, sample collection, X-ray imaging, and dust mitigation experiments," according to the company. "We want to thank NASA for entrusting in the Firefly team, and we look forward to delivering even more science data that supports future human missions to the Moon and Mars," Ferring said. Blue Ghost is the first of three landers to attempt to land on the Moon within the next few months. Houston-based company Intuitive Machines' Athena lander — the followup to the one that didn't stick the landing — will attempt to land on the lunar surface as soon as Thursday. And Japanese space company ispace's Hakuto-R Mission 2 will make its attempt later this spring. Firefly's lander has downlinked an astonishing 27 gigabytes of data over the last 45 days. And considering the many photo opportunities coming up soon, we can't wait to check out the next batch of images. More on the landers: Robot With Large Drill Headed for Surface of Moon
Yahoo
02-03-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Firefly's Blue Ghost lander successfully touched down on the moon
Firefly Aerospace's first attempt at landing on the moon was a success. The company, which is working with NASA under the agency's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, announced early Sunday morning that its Blue Ghost lander softly touched down on the moon, and it's upright and communicating with the team back home. Blue Ghost landed at 3:34AM ET in a region known as Mare Crisium. While Firefly's lander isn't the first commercial spacecraft to land on the moon, it is the first to land properly — Intuitive Machines' Odysseus ended up on its side last year after a faster-than-planned descent. Blue Ghost and the NASA instruments it's carrying are expected to remain in operation for about 14 Earth days. After that, lunar night will begin. If all goes as planned, the lander will capture images in the leadup to lunar night and a few hours after darkness falls, getting high-definition imagery of a total eclipse, the lunar sunset and other moments to document the behaviour of levitating lunar dust. NASA is also testing instruments that can drill and collect samples from the surface. Firefly's Blue Ghost Mission 1 launched on January 15 and reached lunar orbit about a month later. The team says it's already sent over 27 GB of data back to Earth from its journey. 'Just through transit to the Moon, Firefly's mission has already delivered the most science data to date for the NASA CLPS initiative,' Shea Ferring, Firefly's Chief Technology Officer, said in a statement, noting that the hardest part of the mission is over. On X, the company shared a photo showing the lander's shadow on the surface of the moon following its successful touchdown, and joked, 'The lander saw her shadow, 2 more weeks of ops!'
