Firefly Aerospace successfully concluded its first moon mission earlier this week, but not before its Blue Ghost lander captured first-of-its-kind images of the lunar sunset.
The images were taken at the Blue Ghost's landing site on the moon’s near-side (the side you can see from Earth), in a more than 300-mile-wide basin called the Mare Crisium.
Joel Kearns, deputy associate administrator for exploration in NASA's Science Mission Directorate, said the images are unique because of their high-definition quality.
"This is going to provide a valuable opportunity for not only the scientists who are on this mission, but general members of the scientific community," he said, "to look at what's in the images and compare it to some of the perhaps complementary measurements made by instruments on the mission."
Also notable, Kearns said, is that images appear to show a "horizon glow" just above the moon’s surface as the sun goes down.
The pattern would be consistent with images captured by robots on the moon, as well as astronaut observations, during NASA's Apollo program in the 1960s and '70s.
"One of the things that they [scientists] will be looking for in some of the imagery, is to see if they can identify a phenomena called 'horizon glow' or a mechanism called dust lofting," Kearns said. "So lunar dust particles can become charged due to exposure to the solar ultraviolet radiation, and these particles can experience what we think is 'electrostatic repulsion,' causing them to lift off the lunar surface."
The phenomenon was documented by Apollo 17 astronaut Gene Cernan in his notes from the mission.
Firefly's Blue Ghost also recently captured images of the "diamond ring effect" from a total solar eclipse on the moon – a first for the commercial space industry.
"That's been one of the big success stories of this mission," Adam Schlesinger, a project manager at NASA's Johnson Space Center, said. "I've been able to show those images with family and my kids. ... The inspiration that they provide today is great."
In addition to taking the images, Schlesinger said, Blue Ghost collected data that will be used to help lay some of the groundwork for NASA's Artemis program, which aims to send astronauts back to the moon by mid-2027.
Firefly's operations on the moon lasted about 14 days, or the equivalent of one lunar day – another first for the commercial space industry.
The company, which has its headquarters in Cedar Park, is under contract for two more lunar missions with NASA. Blue Ghost Mission 2 is projected to launch sometime next year, with a goal of landing on the moon's far-side.
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