NASA’s Blue Ghost probe landed on the moon, will analyze the subsoil of our satellite

He made it, Blue Ghost landed on the moonand now he will have to study the subsoil of our satellite through ten tools one of which “Made in Italy“. First goal reached therefore for the Blue Ghost Mission 1part of the program Artemis of the NASA.

The mission

As NASA explains, Blue Ghost Mission 1 is a Lander lunar designed to deliver ten useful loads on the lunar surface, and it was launched on January 15, 2025. The mission has the aim of studying the heat flow from inside our satellite, the interactions with the surface, the electric and magnetic fields of the crust (for this reason it will also acquire X -ray images of the Earth’s magnetosphere).

For its realization, the US space agency has entered into a contract with Firefly Aerospacewho made the launch and provided the Lander. But there is also Italy: in fact on board there was Lugliousa receiver developed in our country by Qascom On behalf of the Italian Space Agency (ASI) with the collaboration of NASA and the scientific support of the Polytechnic of Turin.

The planned technological tests include the Regolite samplingthat is, the set of sediments, dust and fragments of material, which make up the outermost layer of the surface of the rocky planets such as the earth or Mars but also of celestial bodies such as moons and asteroids. The aim is to study its adherence.

The Lander Blue Ghost has 155 kg of useful load capacityand its diet is supplied by solar panels that can be mounted on the sides of the spacecraft or deployed so that they can protrude over the upper bridge, based on the orientation of the spacecraft and the sun.

The array They provide a nominal power of 450 W and a peak of 650 W. Thermal control is obtained through heat pipes, radiators, multilayer insulation and active heaters. Surface communications allow an average of Downlink of 6 Mbps, a peak of 10 Mbps and an average of Uplink 0.2 Kbps, a peak of 2 Kbps.

Lunar soil landing

The launch took place on January 15, 2025 at 07:11 Italian time, on a Falcon 9 from Kennedy Space Center. February 13th Blue Ghost He entered the orbit around the Moon and today 2 March, at 09:45 Italian time, is landed In the Mare crisis near Mons Latreille.

The Blue Ghost probe landed – writes NASA on its X page – and will complete safely 10 Scientific investigations and technological demonstrations of NASA who will help us know more about the lunar environment ea support future astronauts on the moon and Mars

And the first image has already arrived, promptly widespread by NASA.

We now await the results of the investigations.

Sources: NASA / NASA / X / Firefly Aerospace