Two lunar landers are on the way to the Moon after SpaceX’s double moonshot

Hollywood Reporter

A busy few months at the Moon This is the first lunar lander built by Firefly, which got its start in the rocket business.
Another important goal for CLPS is to foster the development of the commercial lunar landers themselves.
In the early days of the CLPS program, NASA officials likened their approach with commercial lunar missions to taking “shots on goal.”
This lander, named Resilience, is ispace’s second lunar mission, following a 2023 landing attempt that ended with a crash on the Moon.
Investors need to see more successes with commercial lunar landers to fully realize the market’s potential, Garan said.

POSITIVE

Early Wednesday, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched two commercial lunar landers on different paths to the Moon in the coming months after taking off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

On Wednesday, the mission started with a midnight launch from Kennedy at 1:11 a.m. EST (06:11 a.m. UTC). Both payloads were released by the Falcon 9 rocket into two slightly different orbits, up to 200,000 and 225,000 miles (322,000 and 362,000 kilometers) from Earth, in roughly an hour and a half.

For the last maneuvers needed to enter orbit around the Moon in the upcoming months, the two robotic lunar landers—one from the Japanese space company ispace and the other from Firefly Aerospace, based near Austin, Texas—will use their own tiny engines.

Shortly after the spacecraft separated from the Falcon 9 launch vehicle, ground teams in Texas and Japan activated the spacecraft, and Firefly and ispace reported that their landers, each roughly the size of an SUV, were in good health.

“Jason Kim, CEO of Firefly Aerospace, said, “We would like to thank SpaceX for a spot-on deployment in our target orbit.”. “Now, the invincible Firefly team is in charge of the mission. “,”.

A hectic few months at the Moon.

Firefly began its career in rocketry and is now building its first lunar lander. Alpha, Firefly’s own small-class rocket, is launched, and the company is working with Northrop Grumman to create a larger medium-class rocket that might make its debut as early as 2026. However, officials at Firefly want to go beyond rocket development and launch services. As part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS, pronounced “clips”) program, the company was given a contract in 2021 to deliver 10 research payloads to the Moon’s surface.

The CLPS program was created by NASA in 2018 to provide a framework for the agency to buy rides on commercial spacecraft to the Moon. Agency leaders hope that these uncrewed CLPS missions will be less expensive than a government-led mission while still delivering scientific instruments and tech demo experiments to the Moon. Promoting the advancement of the commercial lunar landers themselves is one of CLPS’s other key objectives. NASA has established itself as a key client for businesses looking to enter the lunar landing market thanks to CLPS.

As of right now, NASA has reserved space on 11 commercial lunar missions with five companies for scientific payloads. Of the 11 missions that NASA currently has contracted for, Firefly’s first Blue Ghost lander is the third.

Early in 2024, the first two CLPS missions took off. The Astrobotic company’s first CLPS lander experienced a propulsion system leak that prevented it from reaching the moon. A month later, Intuitive Machines launched the second CLPS mission to the Moon, which successfully made a soft landing but immediately overturned. Scientists and engineers could still access the lander’s instruments to acquire scientific data and images.

After the final Apollo mission in 1972, Intuitive Machines’ landing was the first time a US spacecraft had made a soft landing on the Moon. The feat was also the first time it had ever been achieved by a commercial spacecraft.

NASA officials described their strategy for commercial lunar missions in the early days of the CLPS program as taking “shots on goal.”. When the companies that were awarded CLPS task orders by NASA were awarded their contracts, none of them had ever launched a spacecraft to the Moon.

Joel Kearns, deputy associate administrator for exploration in NASA’s science directorate, stated, “We do understand with CLPS [that] a lot of these are first time vendors, first time flying to the Moon.”. It is high risk, as we know. Although we acknowledge the high risk, the reward is enormous. The science we will learn from these missions will be simply incredible, so it is worth the risk. “..”.

NASA is paying Firefly $101 million for the payloads it will transport to the moon, in addition to an additional $44 million for the instruments’ development.

Late February marks the launch of NASA’s fourth CLPS mission. The second lander that Intuitive Machines will construct is this one. Later this year, more CLPS missions might travel to the moon.

The ispace lunar lander, which launched Wednesday alongside Firefly’s Blue Ghost lander, is a strictly commercial mission and is not affiliated with NASA’s CLPS program. In 2023, iSpace attempted a landing on the Moon but failed, and this lander, called Resilience, is the company’s second lunar mission. When a software glitch caused the spacecraft to hover for an extended period of time before making its final descent to the lunar surface, engineers concluded that the lander had run out of propellant.

Combining the Firefly and ispace missions on a single Falcon 9 rocket made sense, according to Julianna Scheiman, director of NASA science missions for SpaceX.

Scheiman stated, “It is something that we obviously want to take advantage of when we have two missions that can each go to the Moon on the same launch.”. It made sense to combine the Firefly and ispace missions as soon as we figured out how to make them fly on the same Falcon 9. “.”.

Inside the payload fairing of the Falcon 9, SpaceX stacked the two landers one on top of the other. First to launch from the rocket was Firefly’s lander, the bigger of the two spacecraft, which rode atop the stack. iSpace’s Resilience lander, enclosed in a specially made canister, launched in the lower position. The rocket jettisoned the canister after Firefly’s lander separated from the Falcon 9, maneuvered into a slightly different orbit with a quick engine firing, and then released ispace’s lander.

According to Scheiman, this dual launch arrangement led to a lower launch price for ispace and Firefly.

She stated, “We at SpaceX are very interested in and committed to lowering the cost of launch for everybody.”. We’re quite proud of that, then. “..”.

Resilience and Blue Ghost will land on different routes to the Moon.

After spending roughly 25 days in Earth’s orbit, Firefly’s Blue Ghost will travel to the Moon for four days. The Firefly ground crew will perform multiple thruster burns to prepare for landing once Blue Ghost reaches lunar orbit and confirm that the lander’s propulsion and navigation systems are operational.

The tentative date of Blue Ghost’s last journey to the Moon is March 2. The target landing location is in Mare Crisium, an impact basin in the northeastern region of the Moon’s near side that is 350 miles across (560 kilometers).

Blue Ghost will run for roughly 14 days (one full lunar day) after landing. A subsurface drill, an X-ray imager, and an experimental electrodynamic dust shield are among the tools on Firefly’s lander that will test strategies for preventing problematic lunar dust from building up on delicate spacecraft parts.

It will take iSpace’s Resilience lander four to five months to get to the Moon. It includes a water electrolyzer from Takasago Thermal Engineering, a Japanese company, among other interesting tech demo experiments. In this demonstration, tools that could be used by future lunar missions to turn the Moon’s water ice resources into rocket fuel and electricity will be tested.

Tenacious, a “micro-rover” created by a Luxembourg-based ispace subsidiary, will also be launched by the lander. The Tenacious rover will try to collect lunar soil and take high-resolution pictures of the moon.

This mission is “pivotal” for ispace, according to Ron Garan, CEO of the US-based subsidiary, who spoke to Ars about it.

“On our first mission, we were not entirely successful,” Garan stated during an interview. “Despite the fact that our landing wasn’t smooth, it was still a fantastic achievement. We did have some lessons learned in the software department, even though the hardware operated perfectly and as intended. Our confidence is increased by the fact that the fixes to stop what occurred on the first mission from happening on the second mission were rather simple. “..”.

The Colorado-based ispace subsidiary is run by Garan, a former NASA astronaut. Although the Resilience lander, which was launched on Wednesday, is not a part of the CLPS program, the company will improve the lander for a future NASA CLPS mission under the direction of Draper Laboratory.

“I think it’s pretty significant that we have two lunar landers on the same rocket for the first time ever,” Garan stated. We are all, I believe, cheering for one another. “.”.

For investors to fully grasp the market’s potential, more commercial lunar lander successes are required, according to Garan.

“That market is still in its infancy. It is extremely immature. It is particularly challenging for businesses that are thinking about investing in equipment, experiments, etc., which is one of the causes of that. “to place on the lunar orbit and surface,” Garan stated. “There hasn’t really been a proof of concept yet, so it’s really challenging to make those investments, particularly if they’re long-term investments. “.

“There’s a greater chance that these businesses that will form the basis of a commercial lunar market movement will be able to make those investments every time we have a success,” Garan stated. On the other hand, the opposite occurs each time we fail. “.”.

scroll to top