Elytra will serve as the Blue Ghost transfer vehicle and will first deploy the Blue Ghost lander and the European Space Agency’s Lunar Pathfinder satellite in lunar orbit.
The $18,000,000 CLPS task order for Blue Ghost Mission 2 is Firefly Aerospace’s third NASA CLPS task order, bringing the company’s CLPS task order total to nearly $230,000,000 to date for lunar payload services.
Blue Ghost Mission 2 is Firefly Aerospace’s second mission to the Moon and is planned for 2026.
Firefly Aerospace was awarded an $18,000,000 NASA Commercial Lunar Payload Services contract on 2023-09-12 to provide radio frequency calibration services from lunar orbit for Blue Ghost Mission 2.
Blue Ghost Mission 1 is on track for launch in 2024 and will deliver 10 NASA-sponsored payloads and two commercial payloads to Mare Crisium on the Moon’s near side.
Firefly’s second lunar mission task order was awarded under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative and utilizes the Blue Ghost spacecraft.
The Blue Ghost lunar lander will deliver and operate NASA’s S-Band User Terminal on the far side of the Moon.
Blue Ghost 2 will use both a transfer stage and the lander to deliver Lunar Pathfinder into orbit and to land on the moon.
NASA awarded a $112,000,000 task order through its Commercial Lunar Payload Services program to Firefly Aerospace on 2023-03-14 for a 2026 mission using the Blue Ghost lander.
Blue Ghost 2 will deliver the Lunar Pathfinder spacecraft, built by Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. for the European Space Agency, to lunar orbit to serve as a communications relay.
The Blue Ghost 2 mission will both place a satellite into lunar orbit for NASA and deliver payloads to the lunar surface.
Before landing on the Moon, the Blue Ghost transfer vehicle will deploy the European Space Agency’s Lunar Pathfinder satellite into lunar orbit to provide communications for future spacecraft, robots, and human explorers.
After touching down on the far side of the Moon, the Blue Ghost lunar lander will deliver and operate NASA’s S-Band User Terminal.
Firefly Aerospace will use its Blue Ghost spacecraft in a two-stage configuration to first place a satellite into lunar orbit and then deliver two research payloads on the far side of the Moon.
Aegis Aerospace Inc. delivered the Regolith Adherence Characterization – 1st Flight (RAC-1) lunar payload and 15 customer material experiments to Firefly Aerospace for integration onto the Blue Ghost Mission 1 lunar lander.
Blue Ghost Mission 1 lunar lander is scheduled to launch in May 2024.
Firefly has 50 people working full-time on the Blue Ghost lander and the mission passed an integration readiness review in April 2022.
Firefly Aerospace won a CLPS award in February 2021 for the Blue Ghost lander, which is scheduled to fly to the moon on a Falcon 9 in 2024.
Firefly Aerospace has 50 people working full time on the Blue Ghost lander for a 2024 mission to Mare Crisium.
Firefly Aerospace is developing the Blue Ghost lunar lander to fly a mission for NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program in 2024.