Firefly’s Blue Ghost lander has been parked on the Moon for a little over a week, probing the lunar surface for traces of water and other resources. A new video captures a glimpse of Blue Ghost’s surface operations as it deploys its space toolbox to gather material and data.
Firefly Aerospace shared a brief, 30-second clip of Blue Ghost drilling onto the lunar surface earlier this week. In the video, NASA’s Lunar Instrumentation for Subsurface Thermal Exploration with Rapidity (LISTER) payload is seen in action, digging into the Moon while bits of its interior fly off and land on the surface.
LISTER is a pneumatic, gas-powered drill developed by Texas Tech University and Honeybee Robotics to measure the temperature and flow of heat from the Moon’s interior. The instrument began probing the lunar surface shortly after landing; the video captures the first time LISTER operated on the Moon on March 3.
Firefly’s Blue Ghost touched down on the lunar surface on Sunday, March 2 at 3:34 a.m. ET. The lander touched down in Mare Crisium, a large impact site that was later filled with basaltic lava. The spacecraft captured an awe-inspiring video of its descent toward the heavily cratered lunar surface.
The company’s first mission to the Moon, aptly named “Ghost Riders in the Sky,” is packed with 10 NASA instruments designed to probe the lunar surface and gather data to support future human missions to the Moon as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative. Blue Ghost is also running its own surface operations; the stationary lander will carry out subsurface drilling, sample collection, X-ray imaging, and dust mitigation experiments.
Blue Ghost is set to spend a full lunar day on the surface of the Moon, or the equivalent of 14 days on Earth. Over the weekend, the lander began approaching lunar noon, according to Firefly. That’s when things really heat up on the Moon, with temperatures climbing up to 250 degrees Fahrenheit (121 degrees Celsius). To prepare for the extra warm weather, Blue Ghost began power cycling to keep the lander as cool as possible. The mission is currently operating two of its payloads during the power cycling, but will gradually resume full power operations once the surface temperatures on the Moon start to cool down.
With its touchdown on the Moon, Firefly Aerospace became the second private company to land on the lunar surface, and the first to do it with its lander ending up in an upright position. Intuitive Machines was the first company to land on the Moon, doing so in February 2024, but its Odysseus lander tipped over on its side after a not-so-ideal touchdown. The company’s follow-up mission to the Moon also ended up on its side and was declared dead shortly after arrival.
The Moon is rapidly becoming a crowded place as more missions head to the lunar surface, initiating a new era of commercial drop-offs to space.
