Observe the Blue Ghost spacecraft as it drills into the lunar surface.

      Firefly Aerospace

      This week, activities are in full swing on the moon as a lunar mission embarks on its scientific research. The Blue Ghost mission from Firefly Aerospace executed a flawless landing 10 days ago and has since been deploying its payloads on the lunar surface while gathering scientific data.

      Initially, Blue Ghost was expected to be accompanied on the lunar surface by the Athena lander from Intuitive Machines; however, landing issues caused the Athena lander to land on its side, ending its mission prematurely. Thus, Blue Ghost will carry the primary responsibility for lunar missions until it is hopefully joined by the Japanese Resilience spacecraft from ispace in June.

      In the meantime, Blue Ghost is actively engaged with its payloads, including operating a NASA drilling system designed to gather temperature data from below the moon’s surface. The LISTER (Lunar Instrumentation for Subsurface Thermal Exploration with Rapidity) instrument aims to measure the heat emanating from the moon's interior. Despite the absence of plate tectonics like that of Earth, the moon retains some warmth from its formation.

      Firefly has released impressive footage showcasing the LISTER instrument in action, demonstrating its drilling into the moon's rocky terrain and ejecting dust and small particles during the process. The video features the initial operations of the LISTER payload from last week, March 3. Firefly noted in an update: “Blue Ghost has conducted ongoing LISTER operations over the past week. Positioned beneath Blue Ghost’s lower deck, NASA’s LISTER payload is a pneumatic, gas-powered drill developed by Texas Tech University and Honeybee Robotics, which measures the temperature and heat flow from the moon’s interior.”

      The LISTER payload is engineered to assess two different aspects of heat flow: how the temperature varies at various depths and the thermal conductivity of the material beneath the moon's surface. The drill is designed to reach depths of up to three meters, pausing every half meter to collect data through a probe.

      “By obtaining similar measurements at multiple lunar surface locations, we can reconstruct the thermal evolution of the Moon,” stated Seiichi Nagihara, the principal investigator for LISTER, in a description of the experiment. “This will allow scientists to trace the geological processes that formed the Moon, transitioning from its origin as a molten rock ball to its gradual cooling through the release of internal heat into space.”

      Georgina has been the space writer at Digital Trends for six years, focusing on human space exploration and planetary…

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      Firefly’s Blue Ghost captures breathtaking footage of the lunar surface

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