Private American lander just landed on the moon

Today (March 2), the private lander Blue Ghost of the Firefly company (USA) landed on the moon, carrying a drill, vacuum equipment and other experiments from the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

The Blue Ghost lander landed on the moon on March 2.

Photo: AFP/ FIREFLY AEROSPACE

The Blue Ghost lander from lunar orbit has landed on autopilot, heading toward the gently sloping portion of an ancient crater in an impact basin on the northeastern edge of the near side of the moon.

The mission control center at Firefly's headquarters in the suburbs of Austin (Texas, USA) announced the confirmation.

"We have landed on the moon," AP quoted the announcement from the control center, which monitored the activities of the Blue Ghost lander about 360,000 km from Earth.

The smooth, upright landing of the lander made Firefly the first private company to land a spacecraft on the moon without crashing or landing upside down. To date, only five countries have achieved this feat: Russia, the United States, China, India and Japan.

The Blue Ghost lander was specially designed for the purpose of landing on the moon, with a height of 2 m and a width of 3.5 m, standing firmly on 4 legs.

Launched from Florida on January 15, the lander carries 10 experiments for NASA. The US space agency paid $101 million for the service, plus $44 million for the cost of science and technology equipment on board.

This is the third private mission under NASA's commercial lunar transportation program, which aims to tap private resources while waiting to return astronauts to Earth's natural satellite.

The experiments on the Blue Ghost spacecraft only had two weeks to run, before the lunar day ended and two weeks of darkness passed.

On March 6, another lander named Athena by the private company Intuitive Machines (USA) is also expected to land on the moon under NASA's program.

Source: https://thanhnien.vn/tau-do-bo-tu-nhan-my-vua-dap-xuong-mat-trang-185250302161055095.htm