Zitat Firefly's Blue Ghost Mission 1 Lunar Landing
Watch live as Firefly’s team of Ghost Riders prepare to land our Blue Ghost lunar lander on the Moon for the first time! Blue Ghost is slated to touch down in Mare Crisium on the Moon’s near side no earlier than 2:45 a.m. CST (0845 UTC) on Sunday, March 2. Live coverage, jointly hosted by Firefly and NASA, is scheduled to begin at 1:30 a.m. CST (0730 UTC).
Blue Ghost Mission 1 will deliver 10 science and technology instruments to the lunar surface as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative.
Zitat von Ulrich Elkmann im Beitrag #120AstraForge, Sonde "Odin" freigesetzt, auf Vorbeiflug an einem Asteroiden.
Zitat Two spacecraft that launched as rideshare payloads on Intuitive Machines’ IM-2 mission are dealing with post-deployment challenges that might put the missions in jeopardy.
The Lunar Trailblazer, a Moon-bound spacecraft managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Odin, a spacecraft from AstroForge aiming for an asteroid flyby, have both encountered communication issues that are being troubleshooted.
Odin, a 120 kg (265 lb) satellite, was the first of the three rideshare payloads that deployed from the Falcon 9’s upper stage. It began its solo journey roughy 47 minutes and 34 seconds after liftoff on Wednesday, Feb. 26. ... During the stream on Thursday evening, AstroForge CEO Matt Gialich gave a six-minute-long update on the status of Odin. He stated that the spacecraft appeared to be power-positive by the fact that mission control has had intermittent communication with it.
He said that uplinks are also apparently working and the spacecraft does appear to be in deep space, stating that flight controllers “noticed in the downlink analysis that we are uplinking at the same time, so signal is getting to the spacecraft when we get our downlinks from the spacecraft.”
However, he also noted that there are lingering questions regarding the attitude, or positioning, of the spacecraft.
“We have kind of two possibilities. Possibility number one is everything is fine and all of our issues are on the ground,” Gialich said. “Possibility number two is that we’re in a slow, uncontrolled tumble.”
He said that theory number one is the most likely at this juncture and pointed to the fact that the team has “dealt with a shit load of ground issues” during the first full day of the mission.
He said the first ground station that was supposed to pick up communications with Odin made a lot of mistakes, which prevented communications with Odin until about an hour after separating from the Falcon 9 rocket.
Additionally, he said prior to launch a power amplifier at one of the ground stations, one of their “major communications points,” broke and prevented them from sending signal from that site, though they could still receive downlinks there. Another ground station had interference from a cell phone antenna that was installed nearby about a week before launch.
In a comment within the stream’s live chat on YouTube on Friday, Gialich said that the team was “currently not in a commanding mode” for the spacecraft and would try sending another command attempt “on the next pass of India at 4:20 p.m. PST (7:20 p.m. EST, 0020 UTC)” on Friday.
What comes next is to try and send a command to the flight computer on Odin to turn on the power amplifier. Barring that, they will try and communicate with the radio onboard. They are also progressing towards what Gialich called a “contingency burn” about 6.5 days into the mission, which will try to align Odin with its target asteroid.
Zitat Intuitive Machines@Int_Machines Athena is approximately 152,104 km from the Moon and continues to be in excellent health. Last night, she sent a sequence of photos while using the stars to determine her position in space. During transit, flight controllers checked on the Micro Nova Hopper, Grace, and verified she was in good health ahead of a challenging mission into a lunar crater. #AdLunam #IM2 #Athena (1MAR2025 0815 CT) 3:15 PM · Mar 1, 2025
Zitat Firefly Aerospace@Firefly_Space At this point in our roadtrip, we're 12 hours away from parking our lunar lander on the Moon! Blue Ghost is getting ready to begin a series of descent operations to prepare for a soft touchdown. During these final hours of travel, we'll provide live updates here and on our #BGM1 livestream with @NASA, beginning at 1:20 am CST: https://youtube.com/live/ChEuA1AUJ 9:33 PM · Mar 1, 2025
Descent Orbit Insertion L-63 Minutes 100 km Above Ground Level (AGL) (DOI burn places Blue Ghost on its descent trajectory)
Coast Phase L-62 Minutes 100-20 km AGL (Blue Ghost coasts with engines off while vision-based terrain relative navigation measures vehicle's position)
D'Souza Guidance L-11 Minutes 20 km - 500 m AGL (Blue Ghost uses all eigines to reduce orbital velocity form 1.7 km/s to 40 m/s and position itself above target landing site)
Terminal Guidance L-100 Seconds 500 m - 10 m AGL (Main engine shuts off and RCS thrusters pulse as needed to control descent)
Landing Guidance L-11 Seconds 10 m - 0 m AGL (Blue Ghost descends at a constant 1 m/s until reaching the lunar surface)
Zitat Yes, you can definitetly watch Blue Ghost attempt to land on the moon in real time, in livestreams from NASA and Firefly Aerospace.
NASA's livestream of the landing will begin about an hour before launch at 2:30 a.m. EST (0730 GMT) and will run through the landing. You can watch live on the NASA+ streaming service and the NASA YouTube channel. It's NASA's livestream that Space.com will carry on this page, as well as on our front page.
Zitat After landing, Firefly's ground controllers hope to switch from a low-bandwidth communications link to a higher data rate X-band system. If all goes according to plan, Blue Ghost could be streaming live video from the surface of the Moon back to Earth in as little as 30 minutes after touchdown.
Blue Ghost will operate for about 14 days (one entire lunar day) after landing. The instruments aboard Firefly's lander include a subsurface drill, an X-ray imager, and an experimental electrodynamic dust shield to test methods of repelling troublesome lunar dust from accumulating on sensitive spacecraft components. The spacecraft will drain its batteries after the Sun sets at Mare Crisium for the two-week-long lunar night.
A few of the NASA-funded experiments on Blue Ghost have already produced preliminary results. For example, an experimental receiver aboard the Blue Ghost lander acquired and tracked navigation signals from GPS satellites for the first time in lunar orbit, where these signals are 361 times weaker than on Earth. This is twice the distance of the previous record for the farthest GPS signal acquisition.
Zitat Firefly Aerospace@Firefly_Space Blue Ghost is ready to take the wheel! Flight controllers have just sent the command for Descent Orbit Insertion 9 hours ahead of time since this burn is performed on the far side of the Moon during a planned comms blackout. We expect to regain signal about 20 minutes after the burn to ensure Blue Ghost is on the right course. If not, we get another shot at DOI! Catch this nailbiting operation live from our Mission Control during the #BGM1 broadcast with @NASA starting at 1:20 am CST 12:04 AM · Mar 2, 2025
Zitat von Ulrich Elkmann im Beitrag #127AstraForge, Sonde "Odin" freigesetzt, auf Vorbeiflug an einem Asteroiden.
Zitat Jeff Foust@jeff_foust The company now thinks the spacecraft is in a very slow tumble, which they had appeared to rule out in an earlier update. "There is still a chance that we are going to be able to recover the vehicle… but I think we all know that hope is fading."
Zitat AstroForge@astroforge We are about 300,000km away from the planet and working on some issues. Here is our founder @MattGialich on the status of the vehicle. We will follow this up shortly with a blog post giving all the details.
Zitat Firefly Aerospace accomplished its first attempt at landing on the Moon during the early morning hours of Sunday, March 2. Its robotic Blue Ghost lunar lander touched down on the lunar surface at approximately 3:34 a.m. EST (0834 UTC).
Zitat With the landing complete, Blue Ghost will now begin 14 days of surface operations, the equivalent of one full lunar day.
"This next 14 days is going to be really challenging, and we're going to work to provide all the science data from all 10 clips payloads, but I'm confident that the team will get through it," Jason Kim, Firefly Aerospace CEO said during the press conference.
A major highlight of the mission will take place on March 14, when Blue Ghost captures high-definition images of a total eclipse as Earth obscures the sun from the moon's perspective. Meanwhile, those of us on Earth will witness the same event as a total lunar eclipse, turning the moon a deep, eerie red.
On March 16, the lander will document the lunar sunset and study how levitating dust behaves in response to solar activity, a phenomenon first observed during Apollo 17.
Zitat von Ulrich Elkmann im Beitrag #108 Im Sachen Literatur spielten dort Arthur C. Clarkes Erzählung "The Sentinel" (1951), Keimzelle für den Monolithen aus "2001 - A Space Odyssey", natürlich Arno Schmidts "KAFF auch Mare Crisium" von 1960 und last but not least Robert A. Heinleins Roman "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" von 1966.
Was mir völlig entgangen war, war die letzte cineastische Großtat von Roland Emmerich (ich bin nun mal kein Cineast & seit Corona aus Prinzip nicht mehr): "Moonfall" von 2022.
Zitat Mare Crisium is seen and mentioned throughout the 2022 film Moonfall. It is where the alien A.I. swarm and the astronauts go into the Moon to reach the megastructure beneath the surface.
Zitat Der Film beginnt mit einem Spaceshuttle-Flug im Jahr 2011. Die Astronauten Brian Harper und Alan Marcus reparieren einen Satelliten, als die Raumfähre von einem Energiesturm getroffen wird. Jocinda Fowler, gespielt von Halle Berry, stößt sich im Shuttle den Kopf an und wird bewusstlos. Marcus verliert den Halt und verschwindet im Weltraum, Harper kann sich mit letzter Kraft in das Shuttle retten. Dabei beobachtet er eine Art Schwarm aus kleinen Robotern, der sich zum Mond zurückzieht und im Mare Crisium verschwindet. Harper rettet seine Kollegin und landet das Shuttle von Hand, weil die gesamte Bordelektrik ausgefallen ist. Leider will ihm auf der Erde niemand seine Geschichte glauben. Er wird unehrenhaft entlassen, weil die NASA ihm vorwirft, die Havarie – und den Tod seines Kollegen – durch eigene Fahrlässigkeit hervorgerufen zu haben. ... Dann beginnt der Himmel verrücktzuspielen. Der Mond verlässt seine Umlaufbahn und bewegt sich auf die Erde zu. .. Wäre das aber überhaupt plausibel? Um den Mond mit solcher Gewalt aus der Bahn zu stoßen, müsste eine geradezu irrsinnige Kraft auf ihn einwirken, viel mehr, als die gesamte Menschheit in absehbarer Zukunft aufbringen kann. ... Im Film entscheidet sich der Mond ohne jede äußere Hilfe dafür, sein feuriges Ende auf der Erde zu suchen. Wie bei seinen bisherigen Katastrophenfilmen ist Emmerich an wissenschaftlichen Erklärungen für seine Desaster eigentlich nicht interessiert. Im Presseheft offenbaren er und sein Team jedenfalls ein ziemlich frei treibendes Physikverständnis. ... Für gute Laune sorgen auch die vielen unfreiwillig komischen Dialoge. Wer den Kinoabend genießen will, muss aber schon bereit sein, das völlige Fehlen jeder Logik und die dick aufgetragene Heroik zu ignorieren. Erde und Mond schrammen gerade noch an der Katastrophe vorbei – was auf den Film auch zutrifft.
In Sachen "SF in Druckform" ist "Moonfall" der Titel eines Romans von Jack McDevitt aus dem Jahr 1998, mit dem der Autor aus dem bei ihm gewohnten Milieu "Archäologen auf der Suche nach den verschwundenen Zivilisationen in der Milchstraße" in den Bereich des populären Bestsellers à la "Lucifer's Hammer" bzw. "Deep Impact" (ebenfalls 1998) entweichen wollte. In dem Roman schlägt ein Komet auf der Mondrückseite ein; ein Großteil der Trümmer, in Richtung Erdball geschleudert, gehen als verheerender Meteorschauer nieder und führen fast zum Untergang der menschlichen Zivilisation. Auch Kritiker, die es weniger mit handfesten Zahlen haben, haben angemerkt, daß die Flugdauer von wenigen Stunden für eine solche nicht ganz massearme Trümmerwolke über eine Entfernung von 384.000 Kilometern eine physikalische Unmöglichkeit darstellt, mal davon abgesehen, daß ein Impakt auf der erdabgewandten Seite des Mondes nichts auf der Vorderseite losschlägt.
Apropos "KAFF" und Heinlein. Arno Schmidt hat seinen Roman bekanntlich als orthographische Experimentieranordnung benutzt ("Duden's nicht achtend"), um den schnoddrigen Alltagston seiner Protagonisten wiederzugeben:
Zitat Und Hertha hoch! – Und begierich) : »OchtanndteDu : Hatt’er amall welche geschriebm?«. – »Ass Jung’ – so mit 17, 18? – : jaa.« saachte Tanndte Heete gemütlich : »Och wenn ich suchn würt – ich könndda vielleicht noch n paa von finn’n –«; und, immer boshafter & zärtlicher : »Kummahärda wie hüpsch’as aussieht, wenn’n Mann von Secksunnvirrzich so rot wird.«
Heinlein hat das Englisch seines Erzählers in der Strafkolonie Luna City in einem "futuristischen" Slang gehalten, der einen reichlichen Einschlag aus dem Russischen aufweist und damit an Anthony Burgess' "Nadsat" aus seinem Roman A Clockwork Orange von 1962 erinnert. Die Gründe sind bei beiden Autoren identisch: nachdem Intourist Ende 1959 im Zuge der (vorgeblichen) sowjetischen Tauwetterperiode die Einreisbestimmungen gelockert hatte, haben sowohl das Ehepaar Heinlein wie auch das Ehepaar Burgess 1960 eine Pauschalreise über Leningrad, Moskau mit anschließender Wolgafahrt unternommen & beide Autoren haben rudimentär Russisch gelernt, um sich mit den Einheimischen, die in der Regel ja kein Wort Englisch beherrschten, austauschen zu können (bei Burgess, der sein Leben lang von Fremdsprachen fasziniert war, war die Befassung etwas intensiver). Heinlein hat für seinen Mondslang vor allem das Fehlen von Artikeln, bestimmten wie unbestimmten, aus dem Russischen übernommen.
Zitat We hid it in literal sense, too; this catapult had to be underground, so that it would not show to eye or radar. But had to be hidden in more subtle sense; selenographic location had to be secret.
How can this be, with a monster that big, worked on by so many people? Put it this way: Suppose you live in Novvylen; know where Luna City is? Why, on east edge of Mare Crisium, everybody knows that. So? What latitude and longitude? Huh? Look it up in a reference book! So? If you don't know any better than that, how did you find it last week? No huhu, cobber; I took tube, changed at Torricelli, slept rest of way, finding it was capsule's worry.
See? You don't know where Luna City is! You simply get out when capsule pulls in at Tube Station South.
Is in Mare Undarum area, "everybody knows that." But where it is and where we said it was differ by amount greater or less than one hundred kilometers in direction north, south, east, or west, or some combination. (Buch I, Kap. 9)
Und bei uns regen sie sich über "Ich geh Aldi" auf ...
PS. Kleiner Nachtrag zu Heinlein und Burgess.
Burgess hat die Reise im Auftrag seines Verlegers William Heinemann im Juni und Juli 1961 unternommen, der sich ein Buch mit Reisereportagen erhoffte; herausgekommen ist neben "A Clockwork Orange" noch der Roman "Honey for the Bears." Die Anfahrt ist von Liverpool nach Leningrad mit einem Schiff von Intourist erfolgt. Die Heinleins sind über Frankfurt a.M. geflogen, von dort aus per Aeroflot am 30.4.1960 über Warschau nach Moskau, Eintreffen in Leningrad am 16. Mai und Abfahrt Richtung Helsinki vom Finnischen Bahnhof am folgenden Tag.
"Les hommes seront toujours fous; et ceux qui croient les guérir sont les plus fous de la bande." - Voltaire
Zitat Intuitive Machines@Int_Machines Athena completed her scheduled 492-second main engine Lunar Orbit Insertion (LOI) burn at 6:27 a.m. CST on March 3 and is currently orbiting the Moon. Over the next several hours, flight controllers plan to analyze data to verify the lander’s targeted circular orbit and confirm Athena’s expected landing time.
Athena continues to be in excellent health and is expected to send lunar orbit selfies over the next two days before a landing attempt on March 6. (3MAR2025 0750 CST) 2:50 PM · Mar 3, 2025
Landing site - Mare Crisium near Mons Latreille: 18.56°N 61.81°E
Zitat On February 13, Blue Ghost went into orbit around the Moon, and on March 2, at 08:45 UT it landed in Mare Crisium near Mons Latreille, targeted at 18.56 N, 61.81 E. It will conduct surface operations through one lunar daylight period (roughly 14 days) and for some time after local sunset. The March 2 landing corresponds to local sunrise, it is scheduled for 08:34 UT (3:34 a.m. EST). Local sunset is 16 March.
Zitat Firefly Aerospace@Firefly_Space Rise and shine! Firefly’s #BlueGhost lander captured its first sunrise on the Moon, marking the beginning of the lunar day and the start of surface operations in its new home. Our #GhostRiders have already begun operating many of the 10 @NASA payloads aboard the lander and will continue operations over the next two weeks and into the lunar night. #BGM1 3:00 PM · Mar 3, 2025
Hier Aufnahmen der Landeregion aus der Mondumlaufbahn; Bilder des Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiters:
Zitat The Blue Ghost landing region (image center, 18.56°N, 61.81°E) is heavily cratered due its ancient age (>3 billion years). Image width 1430 meters, north is up [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].
The landing region is near a large volcanic cone, Mons Latreille, which formed billions of years ago as part of the massive outpouring of basaltic magma that filled much of the Crisium basin.
Full-resolution large area mosaic of the Blue Ghost landing region (white box near the top, 220 meters wide). The whole mosaic is 9167 meters wide, and north is up [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].
Hier ein frei skalierbares Panorama der Mondvorderseite (Aufnahmen des Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter), auf der man anhand der links unten angegebenen Koordinaten den Mauszeiger punktgenau auf die oben genannte Position bugsieren kann.
Zitat Intuitive Machines@Int_Machines Athena successfully entered her intended circular orbit around the Moon on March 3.
Flight controllers expect Athena to complete 39 lunar orbits until her south pole region landing site has adequate sunlight to power surface operations.
Intuitive Machines expects a landing opportunity on March 6 at 11:32 a.m. CST. Live landing coverage is scheduled to start at 10:30 a.m. CST / 11:30 a.m. EST on the Intuitive Machines IM-2 mission page and NASA+. The content on both streams is identical. (3MAR2025 1530 CST) 10:34 PM · Mar 3, 2025
Zitat Jeff Foust@jeff_foust ispace says at an ongoing briefing that its Resilience lunar lander will attempt a landing June 5 at 1924 GMT. 1:55 AM · Mar 4, 2025
Zitat Intuitive Machines@Int_Machines 📸🧵1/4: Athena continues to be in excellent health in lunar orbit. Overnight, flight controllers calibrated Athena’s landing navigation cameras, which are designed to autonomously track her position and detect hazards during landing.
2/4: This image sequence is from a separate public affairs camera and is made up of 240 images taken over a mid-latitude region over a 10-minute span. Each image is shown as 2 frames in this sequence
3/4: For reference, Athena captured this image sequence over the Moon's south pole region near her intended landing site, Mons Mouton—one of NASA's designated human landing sites for the Artemis campaign.
4/4: Athena is still targeting a landing opportunity on March 6 at 11:32 a.m. CST. Live landing coverage is scheduled to start at 10:30 a.m. CST / 11:30 a.m. EST on the Intuitive Machines IM-2 mission page and NASA+. The content on both streams is identical. (4MAR2025 0745 CST) #AdLunam #IM2 #Athena
Zitat Firefly Aerospace@Firefly_Space Watch Firefly land on the Moon! After identifying surface hazards and selecting a safe landing site, #BlueGhost landed directly over the target in Mare Crisium. A historic moment on March 2 we'll never forget. We have Moon dust on our boots! #BGM1 6:46 PM · Mar 4, 2025
Nachtrag:
Zitat Scott Manley@DJSnM We've never seen anything like this recording of a landing on another world. @Firefly_Space
Notice that we can in fact see the rocket plumes in the shadows. 7:07 PM · Mar 4, 2025
Zitat Space Koala@culpable_mink This video is actually an excellent modern version of the hammer and feather experiment on the moon. You can actually see the fine dust we expect to hang in the air here on Earth just fall like larger particles. 7:34 PM · Mar 4, 2025
Zitat Firefly Aerospace@Firefly_Space #BlueGhost has been busy since parking on the Moon! Just in the last two days, the data we've downlinked jumped from 27 GB to 57 GB as we continue @NASA payload operations. This includes deploying Lunar PlanetVac and sampling lunar regolith, deploying the Electrodynamic Dust Shield and demonstrating dust mitigation, capturing images from SCALPSS, and continuing operations for the other payloads. Get more details on the #BGM1 payloads here: https://statics.teams.cdn.office.net/evergreen-asse 8:09 PM · Mar 4, 2025
Nachtrag zu # 139 und zum Video der Landung, aus der Rubrik "Elementary, my dear Watson."
Zitat Dr. Phil Metzger@DrPhiltill This is superb! Will be a treasure for quantifying plume-surface interactions during lunar landing. There are some things I don't understand yet and will take a while to unpack. (Note: I'm not supporting the mission so this is just my private musing.) 🧵/1
2/ I don't understand three things about the shadows. First, there is a huge upward flow up the centerline. The plume itself should be clear and invisible, since it cools as it leave the engine and without an atmosphere to collimate it the shock structures in the plume are...
3/ greatly reduced. So when I look at this, I think that central shadow up the center is not the plume but is dust, what we call "fountain flow". Now the lander has only one main engine, so if it was firing then there shouldn't be any fountain flow...
4/ Fountain flow occurs when you have multiple engines firing. The gas goes down, hits the surface of the Moon, and spreads out to fill all of space under and around the lander. Since multiple engines make gas spread from multiple origins, the gas rams into each other and... (image: Gao, et al. Aerosp Sci & Tech 143: 108730.)
5/ rams into each other along the "reflection planes" (the planes of symmetry between the engines). Having nowhere else to go, it travels UP along those reflection planes. When you have multiple engines around a lander, the central point is special in that the gas on all the...
6/ reflection planes meet at that point and has nowhere to go but straight up the middle of the lander. So if it is carrying dust, then you get a big plume of dust (and sand, gravel, and rocks) hitting the bottom of the lander between the engines.
7/ Well, if you have one main engine firing DOWN on the center, or a cluster of closely spaced engines (closer than the distance to the ground), then there cannot be run upward flow on the centerline -- so no fountain flow. But this image looks like fountain flow, so...
8/ ...one has to wonder if the main engine is not firing during terminal landing, and only the RCS thrusters around the periphery might be firing here. I don't know. There's more I want to say about this, but I have a meeting right now and will continue the thread soon...
9/ OK, I'm back. Also, you a notice another couple weird features in the video. First, just to get it out of the way, what the heck is this? It is super sharp, and the image is dark just below the line then fades to brighter again. Three hypotheses...
10/ (A) Is it a shadow on the camera lens due to other structure on the spacecraft, shadowing the camera directly from scattered sunlight? (B) Is it a plume reflection plane from upward-pointed RCS? (C) Is it a digital video artifact?
11/ My guess is that it is far too sharp to be (B). And digital artifacts aren't usually diagonal and don't usually correlate to coherent fading away from the artifact as in (C). So I am guessing it is (A), but I'm not sure and it doesn't matter for the rest of this thread. But it is interesting :)
12/ The second interesting feature is these shadows. What are they? Two initial hypotheses, and I lack any info besides the video so maybe it's something else, but it's fun to discuss so here goes: (A) Shadows of the RCS plumes themselves. (B) Extended shadows of the lander legs on the upward blowing dust. Here are some pros and cons...
13/ First, problems with thinking they are shadows of the plumes. The RCS plumes should not be collimated into narrow jets, but expand to fill all of space in vacuum. But could there be a hotter section in the center? Yes, there could. But would it create a shadow? The propellants burn clear, especially when expanding into vacuum. Could the light be refracting in the plume because of temperature differences within that volume, so it creates a less brightened region on the ground along the center of the plume? Maybe; it's an interesting idea, but I've never heard of this before, so I'd want to do plume simulations and calculate if it could be dense enough to significantly refract light and create a shadow. I'm guessing this is not as likely as the other hypothesis.
14/ So could these features be shadows of the lander legs on the dust? Maybe. It is hard to tell because we don't know how hight the dust is traveling so we don't know where the shadows would be in 3D. But if there is dust traveling high off the ground, then you would see shadows that are wider than the ones on the ground, so the shape and width of these shadows is probably correct to be the lander legs on the dust. But this raises many questions about the overall geometry of the shadows, and I'd want to see more detailed modeling before concluding.
15/ We did this for the Lunar Module shadows. We measured the hardware to get exact 3D geometries, and we did both computer and physical modeling to understand the 3D shapes of shadows on the dust.
16/ For Apollo, there was not any significant dust traveling higher than about 3 degrees angle above the horizontal, so the shadows were only slightly elongated. This shows smoke under a plexiglass sheet at 3 deg angle, with a model of the Lunar Module and a light source at the correct Sun angle. we compared it to the shadows seen in the Apollo landing video. We also mocked it up in Pro/E to digitally recreate the 3D features and validate them.
17/ Without that analysis, I don't want to guess if the two diagonal shadows are actually the landing legs on dust, but it is an hypothesis. This relates to the question of fountain flow. If the RCS thrusters are firing instead of the main engine, it could create fountain flow.
18/ Finally, there is another possible cause of dust to fly up like fountain flow at a higher angle. That is when you have a "deep cratering" process occur. In the Apollo landings we did not have "deep cratering" because the plume spreads out in vacuum and the soil can hold it
19/ And I really would not expect deep cratering to occur in a much smaller lander like this one unless by chance it landed on a super loose deposit of soil from a recent impact ejecta blanket or something. So when I first saw the video with the shadow up the centerline...🤔hmmm
20/ To be precise, there was actually some of the deep cratering process that occurred in the Apollo landings, but in a very limited way. We saw bulk failure and ejection of soil in the very final seconds, which didn't make a deep crater but instead smoothed the surface.
21/ So why do I call it "deep cratering" if it made a flat surface instead of a deep crater? Because it is a difference in the way the gas causes the soil to move. In surface erosion, it lifts the grains one grain at a time and blows them away, but "deep cratering" is a term...
22/ ...that is used imprecisely to mean "bulk motion of the soil caused by bulk mechanical forces of the plume". It is when the soil shears in mass and chunks of soil fly out together. We saw this occur in, for example, Apollo 12 here: Image
23/ But on the Moon, the soil is generally very compacted and has layers in the soil column from one impact blanket over another, and the successively deeper layers seem to have a mechanical discontinuity at their boundaries where the soil resists the plume better, so when "deep cratering" occurred in Apollo, it just blew off the upper layer en masse but didn't dig a deeper hole.
24/ On Earth, when bulk cratering occurs it makes the soil shoot up the center, like in this experiment I did some years ago firing rocket motors into deep sand boxes against a polycarbonate window so we could see into the crater.
25/ When you see a shadow shooting up the center like this, your first thought is either fountain flow or deep cratering. But I really doubt any deep cratering could occur with a lander smaller than the Apollo Lunar Module, so I doubt this could explain the shadow.
26/ OK, so those are my initial thoughts without any communication from the Firefly team, so they might instantly explain away what I saw here. It is SUPER INTERESTING and doubtless will provide extremely good data to understand rocket plumes on the lunar surface.
27/ It is awesome that the NASA SCALPSS payload flew on this mission, because it should have captured stereo videos looking under the lander during this event.
29/ Or for a top-level tutorial, click through the menu at this website. I wrote this to cover the relevant physics, lunar geology, and engineering. https://sciences.ucf.edu/class/landing-team/
30/ I can't wait to hear what the mission team learns from the SCALPSS data! Congratulations again to the @Firefly_Space team. I think I can say that this new dataset on lander plume effects is even better than anybody could have hoped for.❤️🔥
Zitat Hexhawk2@Hexhawk_2·2h Replying to @DrPhiltill The main engine wasn’t used for landing, 8 rcs thrusters were
Dr. Phil Metzger@DrPhiltill·1m 31/ Cool! This explain the fountain flow, then. It was definitely an upward flow of dust up the vehicle centerline. The new dataset from SCALPS will be beyond extraordinary since it got a close look at that. 7:44 PM · Mar 4, 2025
Zitat NASA Successfully Acquires GPS Signals on Moon
NASA and the Italian Space Agency made history on March 3, when the Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment (LuGRE) became the first technology demonstration to acquire and track Earth-based navigation signals on the Moon’s surface.
The LuGRE payload’s success in lunar orbit and on the surface indicates that signals from the GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) can be received and tracked at the Moon. These results mean NASA’s Artemis missions, or other exploration missions, could benefit from these signals to accurately and autonomously determine their position, velocity, and time. This represents a steppingstone to advanced navigation systems and services for the Moon and Mars.
The road to the historic milestone began on March 2 when the Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lunar lander touched down on the Moon and delivered LuGRE, one of 10 NASA payloads intended to advance lunar science. Soon after landing, LuGRE payload operators at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, began conducting their first science operation on the lunar surface.
With the receiver data flowing in, anticipation mounted. Could a Moon-based mission acquire and track signals from two GNSS constellations, GPS and Galileo, and use those signals for navigation on the lunar surface?
Then, at 2 a.m. EST on March 3, it was official: LuGRE acquired and tracked signals on the lunar surface for the first time ever and achieved a navigation fix — approximately 225,000 miles away from Earth.
Now that Blue Ghost is on the Moon, the mission will operate for 14 days providing NASA and the Italian Space Agency the opportunity to collect data in a near-continuous mode, leading to additional GNSS milestones. In addition to this record-setting achievement, LuGRE is the first Italian Space Agency developed hardware on the Moon, a milestone for the organization.
The LuGRE payload also broke GNSS records on its journey to the Moon. On Jan. 21, LuGRE surpassed the highest altitude GNSS signal acquisition ever recorded at 209,900 miles from Earth, a record formerly held by NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission. Its altitude record continued to climb as LuGRE reached lunar orbit on Feb. 20 — 243,000 miles from Earth. This means that missions in cislunar space, the area of space between Earth and the Moon, could also rely on GNSS signals for navigation fixes.
Zitat Intuitive Machines@Int_Machines Flight controllers confirmed that Athena completed lunar orbit insertion with enough accuracy to forego the IM-2 mission's optional lunar correction maneuver.
Athena continues to be in excellent health, completing lunar orbits every two hours, waiting for the sun to rise on her intended south pole region landing site, Mons Mouton.
Athena’s next planned maneuver is Descent Orbit Insertion (DOI), which is designed to lower her orbit to make a landing attempt at 11:32 on March 6. 12:26 AM · Mar 5, 2025
Zitat Intuitive Machines@Int_Machines Athena continues to be in excellent health in Low Lunar Orbit (LLO). She’s completed 24 of her 39 orbits, waiting for the sun to rise on her Mons Mouton landing site.
Live landing coverage is scheduled to start on March 6 at 10:30 a.m. CST / 11:30 a.m. EST on the Intuitive Machines IM-2 mission page and NASA+. The content on both streams is identical. 3:00 PM · Mar 5, 2025
Zitat Intuitive Machines lands near lunar south pole, but fate of private Athena probe unclear
Athena is on the moon, but mission team members are still working to understand its situation.
Intuitive Machines is on the moon again — and again there is some drama.
The Houston-based company's second lunar lander, named Athena, touched down at the Mons Mouton region of the moon's south pole on schedule today (March 6) at 12:31 p.m. EST (1731 GMT).
It wasn't a picture-perfect landing, however. While Athena continued sending data home to Earth and began generating power on the lunar surface, the mission team could not immediately determine if it landed fully upright as planned.
"We can confirm Athena is on the surface of the moon," Josh Marshall, Intuitive Machines' communications director, said during the landing webcast today. "The team is going throuh the process of powering down systems that are not required. We are working to figure out the orientation of the vehicle, which is important because that will determine how much signal we're going to have."
t was a déjà vu moment for Intuitive Machines, which pulled off the first-ever private moon landing last year with its Odysseus spacecraft.
Odysseus came in a bit too fast during its February 2024 descent, breaking one of its legs and tipping partway over onto its side, a configuration that hampered its ability to communicate with Earth.
We'll have to wait a bit to see if Athena suffered a similar fate. Intuitive Machines ended its landing webcast about 30 minutes after touchdown, saying more details would be provided during a press conference scheduled for 4 p.m. EST (2100 GMT) today.
Zitat AMSAT-DL@amsatdl The moment #IM2 Athena @Int_Machines landed on the Moon. Touchdown ~17:28:50UTC, 2025-03-06 as received by the 20m Bochum radio telescope @SternwarteBO 7:00 PM · Mar 6, 2025
Zitat The Launch Pad@TLPN_Official 🚨 IM-2 UPDATE Athena is intact, delivering data, generating power; but "not enough," - Steve Altemus, Intuitive Machines CEO
Intuitive Machines teams have shut down certain components to save energy. 8:50 PM · Mar 6, 2025
Zitat Jeff Foust@jeff_foust "We don't believe we're in the correct attitude" on the lunar surface, Intuitive Machines CEO Steve Altemus says of IM-2. 10:04 PM · Mar 6, 2025
Zitat Scott Manley@DJSnM OK we finally have a statement explaining the combustion chamber reading was probably false, and the IMU reading showing it's on its side is correct. 10:23 PM · Mar 6, 2025
"Les hommes seront toujours fous; et ceux qui croient les guérir sont les plus fous de la bande." - Voltaire
Zitat March 6, 2025: Eight Payload Objectives Complete
Just over four days on the Moon’s surface and Blue Ghost is checking off several science milestones! Eight out of 10 NASA payloads, including LPV, EDS, NGLR, RAC, RadPC, LuGRE, LISTER, and SCALPSS, have already met their mission objectives with more to come. Lunar PlanetVac for example successfully collected, transferred, and sorted lunar soil from the Moon using pressurized nitrogen gas.
Video below shows Lunar PlanetVac operations after the payload was deployed on Blue Ghost’s surface access arm. Congrats to the Honeybee Robotics and NASA team on this incredible achievement!
Zitat Altemus, a former NASA shuttle engineer and senior manager at the Johnson Space Center, said the most reliable information came from the lander’s inertial measurement unit, or IMU, which indicated Athena was resting on its side.
“We think that’s the case,” he said. “I would like to get a picture, though, to know the orientation of exactly where the antennas are pointed, where the engine bell is pointed, where are the solar panels so that we can figure out a power profile.”
“With the payloads, we can talk to them and command them on and off. So if we can figure out the orientation correctly with imagery, we can then develop a power profile (that will) result in a series of priorities in the science and technology list that would allow us to capture some mission objectives.”
But time is short. The solar-powered Athena will only be able to operate for about 10 days before the sun sets and darkness sweeps over the landing site at the end of the lunar day.
“When we get that full assessment, we will then work closely with NASA science and technology groups to identify science objectives that are the highest priority,” Altemus said. “And then we’ll figure out what the mission profile will look (like). It will be off-nominal because we’re not getting everything that we had asked for in terms of power generation, communications, et cetera.”
Auf welcher Breite des Mondes ist der Lander Athena gelandet?
Antwort nach 3 Sekunden:
Zitat Der Lander Athena von Intuitive Machines ist am 6. März 2025 in der Nähe des Mond-Südpols auf dem Plateau Mons Mouton gelandet. Der Mond-Südpol liegt definitionsgemäß bei 90° südlicher Breite im lunaren Koordinatensystem. Mons Mouton befindet sich in der Südpolregion, genauer gesagt etwas nördlich des exakten Südpols, etwa bei 85° bis 89° südlicher Breite, abhängig von der genauen Landeposition.
Die exakte Breite wurde in den verfügbaren Berichten nicht präzise angegeben, aber es wird betont, dass Athena näher am Südpol gelandet ist als jedes andere Raumfahrzeug zuvor. Basierend auf der Beschreibung der Landestelle (Mons Mouton, Südpolregion) kann man davon ausgehen, dass die Landung in einem Bereich zwischen 85° S und 89° S erfolgte. Für eine präzisere Angabe wären zusätzliche Daten von Intuitive Machines oder der NASA erforderlich, die zum aktuellen Zeitpunkt (Stand 7. März 2025) noch nicht vollständig veröffentlicht wurden.
Nachtrag:
Zitat Jeff Foust@jeff_foust·3h “With the direction of the sun, the orientation of the solar panels, and extreme cold temperatures in the crater, Intuitive Machines does not expect Athena to recharge. The mission has concluded and teams are continuing to assess the data collected throughout the mission.” 3:52 PM · Mar 7, 2025
Zitat Intuitive Machines@Int_Machines Intuitive Machines Executes Southernmost Lunar Landing and Operates Payloads. The full release is published on the IM-2 mission webpage. https://intuitivemachines.com/im-2 (7MAR2025 0829 CST) #AdLunam #IM2 #Athena 3:29 PM · Mar 7, 2025
Zitat Intuitive Machines, Inc. (Nasdaq: LUNR, LUNRW) (“Intuitive Machines”) (“Company”), a leading space exploration, infrastructure, and services company, has announced the IM-2 mission lunar lander, Athena, landed 250 meters from its intended landing site in the Mons Mouton region of the lunar south pole, inside of a crater. This was the southernmost lunar landing and surface operations ever achieved.
Images downlinked from Athena on the lunar surface confirmed that Athena was on her side. After landing, mission controllers were able to accelerate several program and payload milestones, including NASA’s PRIME-1 suite, before the lander’s batteries depleted.
With the direction of the sun, the orientation of the solar panels, and extreme cold temperatures in the crater, Intuitive Machines does not expect Athena to recharge. The mission has concluded and teams are continuing to assess the data collected throughout the mission.
This southern pole region is lit by harsh sun angles and limited direct communication with the Earth. This area has been avoided due to its rugged terrain and Intuitive Machines believes the insights and achievements from IM-2 will open this region for further space exploration.
"Les hommes seront toujours fous; et ceux qui croient les guérir sont les plus fous de la bande." - Voltaire
Zitat Three minutes before touchdown at 17:27 UTC on March 6, the Athena entered terminal descent due to a plume of lunar dust preventing the vehicle’s lasers and rangefinders from helping the spacecraft navigate as well as blocking radio signals. After a period of no-communication it was confirmed the Athena landed, was detecting the surface gravity of the Moon, and was generating power, but it was reported that one of the two radio antennae had lost its signal. The Intuitive Machines team put the Athena in a power-saving "safe mode" in the event of a worst-case scenario, another tip-over like IM-1. After 38 minutes of troubleshooting the Intuitive Machines team determined that the Athena was not generating enough power.[40]
NASA and Intuitive Machines held a press conference on the status of Athena at 21:00 UTC. At which Intuitive Machines CEO Steve Altemus stated that Athena is not "in the correct attitude" (meaning that the Solar panels weren't facing the Sun) but that it had begun performing scientific experiments, just at a limited capacity due to the lack of power.[40]
On 7 March, Intuitive Machines announced that downlinked images confirmed Athena is resting sideways in a crater. Payload milestones were accelerated before the batteries depleted. Due to the orientation of the solar panels and extreme cold temperatures in the crater, Athena is not expected to recharge, thus concluding the mission.[2]
Zitat March 8, 2025: Planned Power Cycling for Lunar Noon
Day 7 and the Moon is heating up as we approach lunar noon – the hottest part of the lunar day that can get up 250°F (121°C). In preparation, Blue Ghost has begun planned power cycling to keep the lander as cool as possible. With eight payloads’ objectives already complete, we aim to continue operating our two remaining payloads throughout these power cycles. We’ll gradually get back to full power once the surface temperatures start to cool down again. Stay tuned for more!
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