Blue Ghost Mission 2
Blue Ghost Mission 2 — Firefly's second lunar lander, headed for the Moon's far side near Nassau crater; Firefly gives its launch as no earlier than 2027. Its flagship payload, LuSEE-Night, is a low-frequency radio telescope built to listen for faint signals from the cosmic “Dark Ages” in the radio-quiet lunar far side, while the Elytra orbiter relays communications and carries ESA's Lunar Pathfinder.
Key facts
Mission & specifications
Mission
- Operator
- Firefly Aerospace / NASA
- Status
- Planned
Trajectory
- Distance from the Sun
- 1 AU
- Computed from the cached position
- Distance from Earth
- 0.504 AU
- Computed from cached positions
- Distance from Venus
- 0.48 AU
- Computed from cached positions
Mission
Blue Ghost Mission 2 aims for the side of the Moon we never see — and the silence there is the point. Firefly's second lander, which Firefly gives as launching no earlier than 2027, targets the far side near Nassau crater, a place permanently shielded from Earth's roar of radio and television. Its flagship payload, LuSEE-Night, is a low-frequency radio telescope built by NASA, the U.S. Department of Energy and UC Berkeley to survive the two-week lunar night and listen for one of astronomy's faintest whispers: radio waves from the cosmic “Dark Ages”, the long stretch after the Big Bang before the first stars lit up, which are drowned out everywhere on Earth. To reach the far side the lander flies stacked on Firefly's Elytra orbiter, which then stays in lunar orbit to relay communications — carrying ESA's Lunar Pathfinder — for years. It is a mission to hear the universe's quietest era from the quietest place we can reach.
- 2023NASA selects Firefly for a far-side deliveryMilestone
NASA picks Firefly to carry payloads to the Moon's far side, including a satellite for lunar orbit — the task that became Blue Ghost Mission 2.
Images
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