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Firefly ‘Blue Ghost’ lunar lander touches down on the moon
- complexpass 2y agoMore info: - https://x.com/Firefly_Space/status/1896127381670367703 https://x.com/Firefly_Space/status/1896127381670367703 - https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/touchdown-carrying-nasa-science-fireflys-blue-ghost-lands-on-moon/ https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/touchdown-carrying-nasa-sc...
- ColinWright 2y agoMore discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43224107 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43224107
- dang 2y agoThanks! Macroexpanded: Firefly Blue Ghost Mission 1 Lunar Landing - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43224107 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43224107 - March 2025 (40 comments) Blue Ghost Moon landing Sunday 3:30am EST using Earth GPS lock 238000 miles away - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43222015 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43222015 - March 2025 (3 comments) Nyx Space and Rust Power Firefly's Blue Ghost Lunar Landing - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43217811 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43217811 - March 2025 (1 comment)
- hakaneskici 2y agoCongrats to the FireFly team, this is an amazing achievement. Video of the earth rising from the horizon reminded me of Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot speech. Any opensource libraries in that satellite's tech stack will now get to brag about "our code running on the moon" :) I wonder if FireFly team has used AI coding tools in any part of their development process.
- nothrowaways 2y ago“Firefly is literally and figuratively over the Moon,”
- consumer451 2y agoI really like "Our Blue Ghost lunar lander now has a permanent home on the lunar surface..." It's rare that usage of word "permanent" has this close to an accurate meaning. Complete development of the moon's surface aside, what are the factors what will destroy it? Solar and cosmic radiation? What timescale are we talking about here?
- dmurray 2y agoOverwhelmingly likely to be human interference, even without "complete development of the moon's surface". Perhaps somebody thinks it would make a good museum piece back on Earth, or some bored spacefaring teen vandals destroy it for the lulz, or religious norms will change and those in power will blow it up to show their rejection of idols of a now forbidden age. I'd give it hundreds of years, but not thousands.
- jjk166 2y agoThe're a surprisingly high flux of micrometeoroid impacts at the lunar surface. Most of these are too small to do much damage, but there will probably be measurable erosion in centuries and genuine damage within about 1 million years. The timeline for it to be destroyed/completely broken down is much longer. For context, there's roughly a 50% chance of an astronaut being hit by a micrometeoroid large enough to kill them every 1.3 million years of time spent on the moon's surface. There's roughly a 50% chance of a square meter of the moon being hit by a micrometeoroid equavalent to 3 kg on TNT in a billion years.
- consumer451 2y agoThank you for seeing through my sloppy writing, and identifying what I was getting at. I should have have said "aside from human intervention." So, aside from the human intervention, and assuming that the materials can generally withstand radiation... let's say it's 6 sq meters, [0] I know this is not exactly how it works, but if LLMs[1] and my own lacking skills at mathematics are accurate, then ~70 million years? That sounds so much more "permanent" than anything on Earth. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intuitive_Machines_Nova-C https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intuitive_Machines_Nova-C [1] https://chatgpt.com/share/67c51a06-51e8-8012-9f21-c9a428551d33 https://chatgpt.com/share/67c51a06-51e8-8012-9f21-c9a428551d... (it would be amazing if someone could verify this math and logic, I cannot)
- schneems 2y ago> Cedar Park, Texas For those who don’t live in Texas, many people who live in Cedar Park would say they are from Austin. It’s a suburb to the North. I know an engineer from Firefly from years ago. She was always fascinating to talk to. I also sold my MK3s+ 3D printer to a firefly employee via Craigslist a few years ago. I’m glad they’re having some success.
- buerkle 2y agoAnd they do all their manufacturing in Briggs, TX about 30 minutes north of their HQ.
- tombert 2y agoHell yeah! It would be very cool if we are able to properly colonize the moon in my lifetime. Even if we don't have humans living there like in Futurama (as cool as that would be), it would be unbelievably cool if we have constant back-and-forth trips to the moon. Or we could just blow it up, which might be fun in its own right: https://youtu.be/GTJ3LIA5LmA https://youtu.be/GTJ3LIA5LmA
- consumer451 2y agoAs far as flights of fancy regarding the moon, I enjoyed Randall Munroe's "What if we put a pool on the moon" thought experiment. I would enjoy the experience of propelling myself out of the water like a dolphin! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIIBBj6KR-Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIIBBj6KR-Y
- zelphirkalt 2y agoWouldn't you be cooked immediately?
- consumer451 2y agoThere might be an exact location on one of the poles where the environmental controls don't require dealing with swings of -183C to 106C every 14 days. Other radiation could be tolerated for short periods, mitigated by thick transparent domes with layers of water in between the layers?
- SoftTalker 2y agoThere is no reason for humans to ever return to the moon. The cost and risks are not justified. Drones and robots can do anything that needs to be done. They don’t need to breathe, they don’t need to sleep, or eat.
- tombert 2y agoI think it would be cool, and I don't know that I care if there's a "reason" to do it other than "human achievement". I mean, there wasn't really a "reason" to go to the moon in the 60's either. I think I more or less agree with JFK on this: "Many years ago the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it. He said, 'Because it is there'. Well, space is there, and we’re going to climb it" I could try and find a lot of justifications about medical research or something, and those might be cool, but it would be dishonest if I pitched those as a "reason" to go, because I would want us to return even if those reasons weren't there.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- sfjailbird 2y agoHere are the pictures it has taken so far: https://www.flickr.com/photos/fireflyspace/albums/72177720313239766/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/fireflyspace/albums/7217772031... There's also a cool lunar flyover video taken during final deorbit.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- sva_ 2y agoFlickr? Moon landing? What year is it?
- sen 2y agoFlickr has had a resurgence of popularity among photographers since yahoo sold it. It’s easily the best “professional” photo hosting site currently.
- consumer451 2y agoThis is an interesting tangent. Is it Flickr's copyright rules that make it attractive? Or, something else? Lack of existing competitors? Not associated with a social media account?
- inamberclad 2y agoAs a former Intuitive Machines employee, I feel obligated to correct the title! IM-1 landed on the moon last February and although it didn't stay upright, it was still operational and returned some decent scientific data.
- dang 2y ago(This comment was posted at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43235933 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43235933, where the title was "Firefly Aerospace becomes first commercial company to successfully land on moon". We merged that thread hither.)
- koolala 2y agoIt was flipped upside-down like a Turtle?
- itishappy 2y agoSideways. Still functional, but in somewhat limited capacity.
- adityaathalye 2y agoSo... the mission literally went sideways? Yet, our indomitable heroes saved the day! Jokes apart, I think anybody getting anything off the ground and out of the planetary gravity well are heroes. It's kind of wild how... mundane... rocketry has become. Between that and always-on nearly-free global video calling from a smart watch, I feel like I'm living in the future of some of the 1950s SciFi books I read as a kid. "Kings of Space" by Capt. W. E. Johns comes to mind. The smell of that old paperback copy I have transports me to another time.
- inamberclad 2y agoThat was a separate lander, from Japan!
- somenameforme 2y agoWell how else do you expect to be able to keep the Moon up?
- markdown 2y agoAnyone know if they flew over the site of the Apollo 11 lunar module landing? Surely they'd do it just for the publicity and ability to shut up Joe Rogan and the other nutjobs that consider that landing fake.
- blitzar 2y agoThey did, they flew over the same set at Area 51 (/s???)
- geoffpado 2y agoWould it? Surely they'd just claim that this new company is themselves "in on the hoax".
- protocolture 2y agoTheres no level of evidence they will accept. They have thought terminating cliches for everything.
- freediver007 2y agoNo, we didn't fly over any of the Apollo sites for BGM1. We flew pretty close to the terminator line.
- Mountain_Skies 2y agoRogan hasn't believed that for nearly a decade because he learned more about the physics of the Moon and the engineering of the time. Since you have an interest in truth and honesty, I'm sure now that you've been informed you won't spread this misinformation anymore and will do some reflection on how you ended up holding this view for so long past when it no longer was true. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mmlmxamw_k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mmlmxamw_k
- pell 2y agoRogan has questioned the moon landing again just five months ago. Here is him having a conversation with Matt Walsh about it from episode 2204 of his podcast: https://youtu.be/xGoQcOIONVs?feature=shared https://youtu.be/xGoQcOIONVs?feature=shared
- agentkilo 2y agoCongrats to everyone involved! I planned to watch the live stream but wasn't able to. The moment of successful landing was quite modest, only a mostly-static screen with telemetrics was shown to the public, but it absolutely felt magical. It feels like the moon is well within humankind's reach by now. Coincidentally, I found a copy of Uchu Kyodai (by Chuya Koyama) in my local library, and started reading it recently. It's fun to compare the perspectives from more than a decade ago, to the actual development we have right now, regarding space exploration. (This was posted to another thread, but I moved it here after I realized comments were moved)
- scubatubafuba 2y ago> It feels like the moon is well within humankind's reach by now. It has been for the last 65 years. ;)
- agentkilo 2y agoYeah that's true, but I haven't really experienced the Apollo era personally. After the "gap" between the old space race, and the new race inspired by private space agencies, I do feel we are getting closer, to the moon at least.
- somenameforme 2y agoSomething most people don't appreciate is that, outside of the distance, Mars is super easy mode compared to the Moon. The Moon has 2 week long nights cycling between highs and lows in the range of -130C to +120C, inhospitable terrain, constantly getting pounded by meteorites, no atmosphere whatsoever, much higher radiation, much less gravity, and so on. Mars, by contrast, is oddly similar to Earth - similar day/night cycle, even a similar axial tilt meaning similar seasonal cycles, relatively reasonable temperature ranges, some atmosphere, and more. This is why the image of the Moon as a stepping stone to Mars doesn't really make any sense. The Moon is very much 'hard mode', but it's closer. So the main tech issue to make up (long distance travel) is not one that progress on the Moon will go much towards advancing.
- oxonia 2y ago"At the end of its operations, Blue Ghost will stay put, destined to remain on the moon’s surface indefinitely." Is that a euphemism for "Humans are leaving rubbish to pollute another part of the universe?"
- curiousObject 2y ago> Is that a euphemism for "Humans are leaving rubbish to pollute another part of the universe?" Yes, in the same sense that the Pyramids and Stonehenge and the Parthenon are rubbish
- pjmlp 2y agoWell, I guess some alien archeologists will have some fun trying to figure out what it was used for.
- shlip 2y agoIMHO it would be more Yes, in the same sense that mount Everest is covered with all the garbage all the tourists can't be bothered to bring back from their (ego) trip. On another note, I'm currently reading "Sunburst and Luminary An Apollo Memoir" from Don Eyles, which is a great read that makes you realize the feat it really was at the time. My main interrogation now (and I've not yet looked anywhere for elements of answer) is why is it so difficult to reproduce with the current tech and scientfic advances ? Is bloatware involved or is the scope really different ?
- anothertroll123 2y ago[dead]
- pixl97 2y agoOh no, were going to damage the biosphere of the moon!
- WalterBright 2y agoLeaving spare parts for the lunar colony seems a fine idea.
- scubatubafuba 2y ago"Firefly is the prime contractor for lunar delivery services using Blue Ghost landers." Cool! Now we can start cluttering up the moon with garbage, too!
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- duxup 2y agoSuper cool. This is one of those things you watch and just "feels like the future". I know, we've been there before but it still feels like an awesome event. (someone go back to Venus, I know it's hard, but someone please)
- bobobob420 2y agoDo we get 4k video? :)
- freediver007 2y agoYes, but be patient, we're 1.24 light-seconds away (so lower bandwidth) and we have a lot of science to get done in the next 14 days, and that's the main objective of the NASA CLPS program.
- iJohnDoe 2y agoTruly incredible! https://flic.kr/p/2qP1yLU https://flic.kr/p/2qP1yLU https://flic.kr/p/2qJKm4o https://flic.kr/p/2qJKm4o
- RangerScience 2y agoHorray! Also: - Wow but the moon is 3D. Like, when we see shots of Earth, the ground always looks so flat, but the depth of the craters and the heights of the ridges is really, really amazing to see - ...KSP did a really good job mimicking the real thing
- theoreticalmal 2y agoinsert flat-moon comment here
- tiahura 2y agoWhy are the interiors of the craters uniformly deep?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- samstave 2y agoI was wondering that as well as the crater edges look smoothed... Billions of years of Space Dust? (Obviously a fresh impact crater would be starkly different, but if its craters are all from after it was formed, and then was still being inundated with a cloud of micro hits - and then the cloud of all the dust that was left from all the collisions turned to that powder, and finally settled over the surface.
- lstodd 2y agobecause rock behaves like liquid at the time of impact.
- ww520 2y agoThis is excellent news. Private sector companies are going into space, landing on extraterrestrial bodies. Hope this spur more activities outward.
- bmitc 2y ago> Firefly is carrying out this mission as a contractor under NASA’s CLPS and Artemis programs
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- bavell 2y agoThere's that pale blue dot! Nice selfie. https://x.com/Firefly_Space/status/1896158394295390367/photo/1 https://x.com/Firefly_Space/status/1896158394295390367/photo...
- Animats 2y agoNice. Now to kill the manned lunar program and send more robotic missions.
- sidcool 2y agoMy manager: What's the hoopla about? It was done more than 50 years ago. Tech people make a lot of noise about things that have been done already.
- jmspring 2y agoThis is great. And it’s sad to think this, but given current trends at the federal level and a competitor with influence, is there risk for the company and financing/operational options?
- spaceng 2y agoHere's some behind-the-scenes from the vision navigation team: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/s9E8DBK896w https://www.youtube.com/shorts/s9E8DBK896w
- freediver007 2y agoSuper cool! Good working with you guys ;-)
- criddell 2y agoOfftopic, but what is up with YouTube's algorithm? Is it just me? When I scroll to see the next videos they are all very strange kids videos. Full of primary colors and super bizarre sequences. I was expecting to see more Firefly related videos. One video is a kid flushing things down a toilet so an adult makes a cardboard toilet and picture cards they can put in. Next was a woman going into a theater and somebody put something in her backpack. Turns out it was a doll. Is anybody else seeing this stuff? What is it? Who's making it?
- smolder 2y agoDon't click on weird stuff if you want to see less. Go in to your "My data in google" page and delete the weird stuff from your history and you should not see it so much. Also use the "not interested" feature in the video feed.
- DeathArrow 2y agoI bet the code for the ship and the lander wasn't written by AI.
- jgord 2y agoawe inspiring photos .. and we really need awe-inspiring right now.
- BlueGh0st 2y agoWhat a strange name.
- skc 2y agoI still very childishly examine every frame of those videos looking for something, anything to move. Ha! Awe inspiring stuff.
- t43562 2y agoI am a fan of the LuGRE instrument from Italy. It's a sneaky little precursor to the ESA Lunar Pathfinder which will put a lunar communications system and positioning system into orbit. That will be able to use the LuGRE instrument to get it's own position fixed accurately and then it can start providing communications and positioning services to the surface. A few more satellites and the whole moon will be covered.
- cytocync 2y ago[dead]
- butlike 2y agoWhat gets me is that the videos warp the perspective of the Earth in a way where it doesn't appear large anymore; and I wonder if that would happen with astronauts too. They break through the atmosphere and then all of a sudden it looks like a small globe when the point-of-reference switches to the blackness of space.
- dylan604 2y agoThe moon is a long way away. The furthest man has ever been from terra firma. The Earth is small at that distance compared to images from ISS or even a geosync satellite. The distance to the moon is about 30 Earths for perspective, over 400,000 kilometers away. Here's a very famous image from Apollo 8: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/82693/earthrise-revisited https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/82693/earthrise-rev... For a different perspective, check out the view of earth/moon from Mars: https://science.nasa.gov/resource/earth-and-moon-as-viewed-from-mars/ https://science.nasa.gov/resource/earth-and-moon-as-viewed-f...
- nonethewiser 2y agoEarth in that image from the moon looks way bigger than the one he's talking about
- dylan604 2y agoDifferent lenses would be the obvious answer. The lander's imagery looks like wide angle lenses while the Apollo image was taken by a human using a 250mm lens. If you watch the video in the link you'll see all of this info. It even shows a recreation of what it would look like to the astronauts which makes the earth look much smaller in the images
- bongodongobob 2y agoThat just has to do with the lens size. The earth will be bigger using a 300mm zoom lens than a wide angle 17mm.
- EcommerceFlow 2y agoThis is the outcome of Elon's vision for cheap space flight. Without reliable and reusable rockets, small missions like this would never be possible. In 3-5 years, once Starship is running continuously, expect a flurry of these types of unique "small" missions. The future of spaceflight is so exciting.
- consumer451 2y agoExtremely informative analysis from Scott Manley was just released: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XmhxEDsVTY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XmhxEDsVTY
- nonethewiser 2y ago>About 14 days into the mission, Blue Ghost’s landing site will be plunged into lunar night. The lander will then need to rely on battery power as the company aims to keep it functioning in temperatures as cold as minus 250°F (minus 130°C). Why not hibernate?
- anaptdemise 2y agoEverything is politics. Remember when the US forced the Ukrainian investor of Firefly to sell? https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/07/feds-who-forced-ukrainian-investor-to-sell-rocket-company-backtrack-years-later/ https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/07/feds-who-forced-ukrain... https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/max-polyakov-and-noosphere-released-by-us-from-restrictions-imposed-before-russian-invasion-of-ukraine-302192342.html?tc=eml_cleartime https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/max-polyakov-and-no... https://noosphereventures.com/eos-to-create-its-own-radar-microsatellite-constellation-eos-sar/ https://noosphereventures.com/eos-to-create-its-own-radar-mi...
- MichaelZuo 2y agoWow didn’t know about that…