“We’re on the moon,” Mission Control reported, adding the lander was “stable.” The mission is part of a NASA partnership with industry to cut costs and support the Artemis program, which aims to return astronauts to the moon.
“We’re going to be putting America first, we’re making America proud, we’re doing this for the US citizens,” said acting NASA director Janet Petro.
What do we know about the mission?
Blue Ghost was launched in mid-January from Florida, carrying 10 experiments from NASA to the lunar surface. The space agency paid $101 million (roughly €97.3 million) for the delivery and $44 million more for the science. The four-legged lunar lander is roughly the size of a compact car.
The lander is carrying a vacuum that would suck up moon dirt for analysis and a drill that can measure temperature at depths of up to 10 feet (3 meters) below the surface.
The demos should run for roughly two weeks before lunar daytime is up and the lander shuts down. The lander captured stunning footage of Earth and the moon along its journey and is due to capture high-definition imagery of a total eclipse on March 14 and a lunar sunset on March 16, in an effort to provide insight into how dust levitates above the surface under solar influence.
Who else has successfully moon landed? It is the second private company to achieve a soft moon landing, following the success of the Intuitive Machines Odysseus lander last year, albeit with a less smooth landing; breaking a leg and tipping over in the process. The Houston-based firm is sending another lander to the bottom of the moon this year, due to land on Thursday.
On the national level, five countries have also managed the landing. They include the then-Soviet Union, the US, China, India, and Japan.
Edited by: Louis Oelofse
Source: https://www.dw.com/en/us-private-spacecraft-lands-on-moon/a-71797379?maca=en-rss-en-all-1573-rdf
