See the incredible view of our planet captured by the Blue Ghost spacecraft
And now, it has captured an even more remarkable image: our planet Earth from a distance of 4,000 miles away.
“Firefly captured the beauty of our home planet during another Earth orbit burn,” Firefly Aerospace wrote in a mission update, sharing the image above. “This second engine burn (and first critical burn) adjusted Blue Ghost’s apogee (the furthest point from Earth) using our Spectre RCS thrusters. With just over two weeks left in Earth orbit before our Trans Lunar Injection, the Firefly team will continue operating our NASA payloads onboard and capturing science data along the way.”
Along with the photograph, the team also posted this video taken during the second engine burn, which shows the Earth moving away as the spacecraft burns its way away from it.
The spacecraft will now spend a little over two further weeks in orbit around Earth, gradually adjusting its trajectory until it performs a maneuver called a trans lunar injection, after which it will head on a four-day journey toward the moon on a path called a lunar transit. Once it arrives at the moon it will have to enter lunar orbit, performing a maneuver called a lunar orbit injection, then it will spend 16 days orbiting the moon before attempting a landing on the moon’s surface.
and ended up somewhat on its side, having tipped when a foot caught on the surface. This lander was still able to collect science data, but due to its angle it could only collect a small amount of solar power and its operations on the surface lasted just a few Earth days.
Firefly Aerospace will be looking for a more smooth landing operation, and will be using technology similar to that used by rovers on Mars called terrain relative navigation, in which onboard computers use images of the ground below to choose a suitable landing site.
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