Space fans won’t have to wait long for major launches to begin in 2025. NASA is kicking off the new year with a big mission to the Moon. The upcoming mission includes Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lunar lander and Japanese company ispace’s Tenacious lunar rover and is part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program.
Blue Ghost’s main mission will be research. The lunar lander will launch and spend its first 8 hours making sure all of its systems are working. From there, it will stay in Earth’s orbit for 25 days, taking measurements and waiting for the right moment to launch to the Moon. After four days of transit, Blue Ghost will spend 16 days in lunar orbit to collect more data before descending to Crisium mareone of the largest basins on the Moon.
Blue Ghost’s mission plan shows orbits around the Earth and the Moon before landing on the lunar surface.
Once there, he will spend a lunar day – approximately 14 Earth days – taking measurements with 10 NASA Payloads. The instruments will measure subsurface thermal data, radiation levels and other planetary details. It will also measure regolith, which is the dirt and sediment that is often deposited on airless planetary bodies like the moon. Regolith research will help mitigate dust on future lunar missions.
At the end of its mission, Blue Ghost will take some photos of the lunar sunset as night falls. The lander is not intended to return to Earth, so once night falls, the lander will have about 5 hours to perform its final actions before logging off. Firefly Aerospace says that should be more than enough to take photos of the sunset and send them back to Earth. Once offline, that’s the end of the Blue Ghost story.
The Tenacious mission plan will rendezvous with the Hakuto-R lunar lander before completing its tasks.
With Blue Ghost, NASA will send ispace’s Tenacious lunar rover on the surface of the planet. It’s one of the smallest planetary rovers ever designed, and it wouldn’t look out of place in a RC car toy store. Tenacious stands 26 centimeters (10 inches) tall and weighs only 5 kilograms (11 pounds).
Tenacious is part of the second Resilience mission. The first mission took place in 2022 with the equally small Hakuto-R lander.
Tenacious will launch with Blue Ghost, then Tenacious will land at Atlas Crater in Mare Frigoris and establish a connection with the Hakuto-R lander. This is how the data will return to Earth.
Tenacious will use its equipment to conduct food production experiments, detect radiation, perform water electrolysis and collect regolith.
When is Blue Ghost and Resilience launching?
NASA says the launch is planned for a six-day period in mid-January, but exact dates have not yet been confirmed.
When the launch takes place, it will lift off from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. SpaceX will provide a Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket for the launch.
Can I stream the launch of Blue Ghost and Resilience?
Yes. A NASA representative told CNET that the launch will be broadcast live. No official announcement has been made yet, but keep an eye out NASA Upcoming Events Page for more details as they are announced. We will update this article when we know more.
What are the mission payloads?
In total, 15 total payloads – the elements of the spacecraft dedicated to producing and relaying mission data – will head to the Moon. Five of them go with Tenacious and 10 with Blue Ghost.
Blue Ghost Payloads:
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Lunar instrumentation for underground thermal exploration with speed (LIST) from Honeybee Robotics
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Planet Lunar Vac (LVP) from Honeybee Robotics
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Next generation lunar retroreflector (GNLR) from the University of Maryland
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Characterization of adhesion to regolith (BECAUSE) from Aegis Aerospace
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Radiation tolerant computer (RadPC) from Montana State University
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Electrodynamic dust cover (EDS) from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center
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Heliospheric X-ray imager for lunar environment (LEXIE) from Boston University, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and Johns Hopkins University
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Lunar magnetotelluric sounder (LMS) from the Southwest Research Institute
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Experimental lunar GNSS receiver (LuGRE) of the Italian Space Agency and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
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Stereo camera for lunar plume and surface studies (SCALP) from the NASA Langley Research Center
Resilience payloads:
