The Falcon 9 rocket of SpaceX, a private company owned by billionaire Elon Musk, launched two lunar landing modules from the Cape Canaveral spaceport on Wednesday.
Photo: SITA/AP, John Raoux
A SpaceX Falcon 9 lifts off from Pad 39A carrying a pair of lunar landing modules at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. 15.1.2025
The first is the Blue Ghost, which was developed and constructed by the Firefly Aerospace company based in the US state of Texas, the second is Resilience from the Japanese start-up ispace. The first module should reach the moon in approximately 45 days, the second in four to five months, reports TASR, referring to the report of the DPA agency.
About two meters tall and three meters wide, the Blue Ghost module is named after the Phausis reticulata firefly found in parts of the US, nicknamed the blue ghost. It has materials and instruments on board for ten scientific experiments developed by the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and intended to study the Moon and prepare for manned flights.
The Resilience module also includes a miniature vehicle called Tenacious, which is designed to explore the lunar surface and collect bulk material.
Each module will land in a different area of the Moon: Blue Ghost will land in the Sea of Troubles (Mare Crisium), a depression with a diameter of about 550 kilometers, Resilience’s target is the Sea of Cold (Mare Frigoris).
Both lunar modules are trying to build on the success of the Texas company Intuitive Machines, which was the first to successfully land on the moon last February with the IM-1 Odysseus module. Until recently, landings on the moon were a matter of state-funded agencies, DPA reminded.
Several American companies are currently planning lunar missions under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. NASA wants to send people to the moon again this decade as part of the Artemis program, launched in 2017, and create a permanent base there. The next step should be the flight of a human crew to Mars.
Source: vat.pravda.sk
