Long Beach, Calif.-based Rocket Lab USA Inc. (Nasdaq: RKLB) announced the successful Moon landing of Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 on March 2 at 8:34 a.m. UTC (3:34 a.m. ET), supported by Rocket Lab’s MAX Flight and MAX Ground Data Software suites.
“Congratulations to the Firefly team for the successful landing of the Blue Ghost 1 mission, a remarkable accomplishment achieved by few,” said Kyle Andringa, Rocket Lab’s senior director Space Systems Software. “Rocket Lab is honored to support this mission with our flight-proven space software and state-of-the-art components.”
The Blue Ghost 1 lander is supported by Rocket Lab’s MAX Flight and MAX Ground Data Software suite, which provides capabilities such as commanding, telemetry, autonomous sequencing, attitude determination, guidance, navigation, control and fault protection throughout all mission phases, including descent and landing. Additionally, Rocket Lab’s Mission Operations Center in Littleton served as a remote and backup operations center for Firefly’s Texas homebase. The spacecraft operations team collaborated with Firefly’s Blue Ghost operations team, performing orbit determination, planning maneuvers, generating commands, and monitoring the lander’s guidance, navigation, and control system health during the mission.
Rocket Lab also provided three high-efficiency solar power assemblies mounted on the lander’s sides and top deck, delivering 400 W of power over the mission’s 1,470 operational hours.
Firefly’s Blue Ghost mission supports lunar science and exploration by delivering advanced instruments and technology demonstrations to the Moon as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program.
Founded in 2006, Rocket Lab provides space launch services, satellite manufacture, spacecraft components and on-orbit management solutions to facilitate access to space.