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Blue Ghost Lander Achieves First Commercial Moon Landing and Demonstrates GPS Navigation on Lunar Surface

Firefly Aerospace's historic mission successfully landed on the Moon, enabling NASA's LuGRE experiment to track Earth-based navigation signals 225,000 miles away.

  • Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lander successfully touched down on the Moon's Mare Crisium on March 2, marking the first fully successful commercial lunar landing.
  • NASA's Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment (LuGRE) aboard Blue Ghost demonstrated the ability to acquire and track GPS and Galileo signals on the Moon for the first time, achieving a navigation fix 225,000 miles from Earth.
  • LuGRE also set records for highest altitude GNSS signal acquisition during its journey, reaching 243,000 miles from Earth while in lunar orbit on February 20.
  • The mission is part of NASA's Artemis program and the Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative, advancing technologies for autonomous navigation and future lunar and Martian exploration.
  • Blue Ghost's 14-day mission includes deploying 10 NASA instruments to study lunar regolith, test subsurface drilling, and explore methods for mitigating lunar dust.
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