Category Archives: Firefly

Friday / 15 November 2024

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Firefly Aerospace Aims for Moon Far Side

Firefly Aerospace, Texas, latest fundraising of US$175M, much from RPM Ventures, raises valuation to US$2B; majority owner is AE Industrial Partners; will launch via SpaceX Falcon 9 for first of 2 commercial Moon landings under NASA CLPS awards, delivering 10 instruments / experiments including LuSEE-Night, also Australian seismic SPIDER; after transport on 2,700 kg-payload-capacity Firefly Elytra Dark Transfer Vehicle in lunar orbit, lander Blue Ghost carries 150 kg to lunar surface, provides data / power / thermal resources for operations from Moon far side for 10+ days

Credits: Firefly Aerospace, Fleet Space, SpaceX, Marilyn Sargent/Berkeley Lab

Wednesday / 11 September 2024

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Commercial Missions Aiming for 2024 Lunar Touchdown

Firefly has potential mid-November launch for its 1st Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) mission under ~US$93M NASA award, of Blue Ghost lander with 10 NASA payloads to Mare Crisium at 18.56°N, 61.81°E; Intuitive Machines may launch December with its 2nd lunar mission IM-2, under ~US$47M NASA CLPS award, of Nova-C lander with drill / mass spectrometer / solar panels / Caltech Lunar Trailblazer, to Shackleton connecting ridge in South Pole region; Outside of CLPS, ispace of Japan Hakuto-R Mission 2 of Resilience lander NET December will take micro-rover ~26x32x54 cm with HD camera, regolith-acquiring shovel to further NASA-led Artemis program; all 3 projects expect to launch aboard SpaceX Falcon 9

 

Credits: Intuitive Machines (L), Firefly Aerospace (R)

Friday / 30 August 2024

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Firefly Aerospace Aiming for NET December Launch, Blue Ghost Testing at JPL

Firefly may become 3rd American company attempting lunar landing; Blue Ghost lander now being tested at JPL, designed for future annual Moon payload services; first mission “Ghost Riders in the Sky” to launch NET Dec from Florida on Falcon 9, deliver 10 payloads per CLPS Task Order 19D and others to Mare Crisium after ~45 days in transit, operating one lunar / 14 Earth days and 5 lunar night hours; an “end-to-end space transportation company”, Firefly has new CEO Jason Kim, 700 employees, 4,650 sq meter facility, 230 sq meter clean room 307 km from Dallas TX 

Credits: Firefly Aerospace, NASA

Friday / 19 April 2024

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Firefly Aerospace Set to Announce Blue Ghost Mission 1 Q3/Q4 Launch Window to Moon

Austin TX-based Firefly building on 2-m tall, 3.5-m diameter Blue Ghost lunar lander at newly-expanded 19,231 m2 work space under CLPS US$93.3M task order 19D; Blue Ghost M1 could be 4th Moon surface mission to ride on SpaceX Falcon 9 (Beresheet, Hakuto-R, IM-1) with 30-day launch window TBA in May; The 150-kg capacity lander is to carry 10 NASA payloads with 94-kg mass including regolith-repelling Electrodynamic Dust Shield (KSC), solar wind-Earth magnetic field investigation Lunar Environment Heliospheric X-ray Imager (Boston University), and Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment (MSFC), first attempt to utilize GPS on Moon

Pictured (T-B) Firefly CEO Bill Weber, Advisory Board Member Jim Bridenstine, CFO Darren Ma
Credits: Firefly

Weekend Edition
Fri-Mon / 10-13 Nov 2023

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4 Lunar Lander Companies Working to Support USA Return to the Moon / Artemis Under NASA Commercial Lunar Payload Service

CLPS providers currently under contract to land NASA and independent payloads on Moon are Astrobotic, Intuitive Machines, Firefly and Draper: Astrobotic Peregrine awaiting launch from KSC to Gruithuisen Domes NET 24 Dec, Griffin lander to carry VIPER NET Nov 2024; Intuitive Machines targeting 12 Jan launch of Nova-C to Malapert A and again in 2024 to deliver PRIME-1 drill to Shackleton connecting ridge; Firefly Blue Ghost scheduled to land in Mare Crisium NET 2024 and on the lunar farside NET 2026, delivering radio astronomy LuSEE-Night and SPIDER seismometer; Draper is also targeting Schrödinger Basin on far side NET 2025 with APEX 1.0 lander built in collaboration with ispace USA

Credits: Astrobotic, Intuitive Machines, Firefly, Draper, NASA

Weekend Edition
Fri-Mon / 29 Sep – 2 Oct 2023

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USA Enterprises Eager to Lead Return to Moon Surface, Make History with First Commercial Landings

Intuitive Machines, Astrobotic, Firefly, Draper, and ispace USA are working towards first United States Moon landings in over 50 years, with IM and Astrobotic aiming for launches before EOY; NASA financing IM-1 approximately US$116M and Peregrine Mission 1 $79.5; IM-1 carrying LN-1 navigation instrument, NDL Doppler lidar, SCALPSS plume cameras, and Laser Retroreflector Array produced by GSFC for NASA; Commercial customers include Columbia Sportswear, Embry–Riddle, Lunaprise, Jeff Koons, Lonestar Data Holdings; NASA / UC-Boulder and independent International Lunar Observatory Association to send Astronomy from the Moon precursors ROLSES and ILO-X

Pictured: Intuitive Machines CEO Steve Altemus, Astrobotic CEO John Thornton; Credits: IM, Astrobotic, Linkedin

Tuesday / 19 Sep 2023

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NASA Commercial Lunar Payload Services Issues New Award to Firefly Aerospace for Astronomy from the Moon Follow-on

The second Firefly lunar mission launching NET 2026 to receive additional US$18M for frequency calibration of LuSEE-Night payload, with $112M already allotted for CLPS CS-3 task order for Moon far side delivery; LuSEE-Night is a collaboration between Space Science Laboratory and DOE (Brookhaven / Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories), led by PI Stuart Bale of UC Berkeley, which aims to place a 4-monopole rotating antenna array to probe cosmological ‘Dark Ages’ signals between 0.1-50 MHz; Instrument calibration to utilize Elytra Dark transfer stage / lunar orbital platform, which will deliver ESA Lunar Pathfinder relay satellite being built by SSTL

Credits: Firefly, UC Berkeley