Private lunar lander aces moon touchdown with special delivery for NASA

Cape Canaveral, March 2: A private lunar lander carrying a drill, vacuum and other experiments for NASA touched down on the moon Sunday, the latest in a string of companies looking to kickstart business on Earth’s celestial neighbour ahead of astronaut missions.
Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander descended from lunar orbit on autopilot, aiming for the slopes of an ancient volcanic dome in an impact basin on the moon’s northeastern edge of the near side.
Confirmation of successful touchdown came from the company’s Mission Control outside Austin, Texas, following the action some 360,000 kilometres away.
“You all stuck the landing. We’re on the moon,” Firefly’s Will Coogan, chief engineer for the lander, reported.
An upright and stable landing makes Firefly – a startup founded a decade ago – the first private outfit to put a spacecraft on the moon without crashing or falling over. Even countries have faltered, with only five claiming success: Russia, the US, China, India and Japan.
A half hour after landing, Blue Ghost started to send back pictures from the surface, the first one a selfie somewhat obscured by the sun’s glare. The second shot included the home planet, a blue dot glimmering in the blackness of space.
Two other companies’ landers are hot on Blue Ghost’s heels, with the next one expected to join it on the moon later this week.
Blue Ghost – named after a rare US species of fireflies – had its size and shape going for it. The squat four-legged lander stands 6-foot-6 (2 metres) tall and 11 feet (3.5 metres) wide, providing extra stability, according to the company.
Launched in mid-January from Florida, the lander carried 10 experiments to the moon for NASA. The space agency paid USD 101 million for the delivery, plus USD 44 million for the science and tech on board.
It’s the third mission under NASA’s commercial lunar delivery programme, intended to ignite a lunar economy of competing private businesses while scouting around before astronauts show up later this decade. (AP)