OrbitalHub

Wikipedia dicit:

Firefly Aerospace Blue Ghost, or simply Blue Ghost, is a class of lunar landers designed and manufactured by American private company Firefly Aerospace. Firefly plans to operate Blue Ghost landers to deliver small payloads to the surface of the Moon. The first Blue Ghost mission was launched at 1:11 a.m. EST (06:11 UTC) on January 15, 2025. It successfully landed on the Moon on March 2, 2025. The landers are named after the firefly species Phausis reticulata, known as blue ghosts.

Firefly is the prime contractor for lunar delivery services using Blue Ghost landers. Firefly provides or subcontracts Blue Ghost payload integration, launch from Earth, landing on the Moon and mission operations. Firefly’s Cedar Park facility serves as the company’s mission operations center and the location of payload integration. Firefly operates a 50,000-square-foot (4,600 m2) spacecraft facility with two mission control centers and an ISO-8 cleanroom to accommodate multiple landers.

Blue Ghost has four landing legs. It supplies data, power, and thermal resources for payload operations through transit to the Moon, in lunar orbit, and on the lunar surface. The spacecraft is designed and built to be easily adapted to each customer’s cislunar needs. Blue Ghost can be customized to support larger, more complex missions, including lunar night operations, surface mobility, and sample return, and is compatible with multiple launch providers. Firefly asserts that in-house end-to-end manufacturing and testing of the Blue Ghost structure is a differentiator among the CLPS landers.

NASA awarded Firefly the first Blue Ghost lunar delivery task order in February 2021 as part of the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative.

Video credit: NASA Langley Research Center

NASA dicit:

NASA is planning a lunar landing near the moon’s South Pole in the 2026 time period, this mission is to be followed by the establishment of a lunar base later in the same decade. The Vertical Solar Array Technology (VSAT) project is focused on the development of solar array technologies necessary for sustained presence on the lunar surface circa 2030. Existing solar array structures and deployment system technologies are designed for either zero-g or horizontal surface deployment. VSAT will explore deployment of vertical arrays on masts of up to 10m in length in order to capture continuous sun light at the lunar south pole. The VSAT system must also be capable of stable deployment on uneven terrain and autonomous retraction to enable system mobility on the moon’s surface.

Finally, given the nature of space operations and the fuel requirements associated with a lunar landing, VSAT will be designed to be as lightweight as possible. The VSAT project objective is to engage industry in the development of the underlying technologies necessary for solar array deployments at the moon’s south pole. As part of the engagement process, the project will develop a reference mission and design to guide industry efforts. It is also expected that the project will fabricate high-risk elements of the reference design for development and test purposes. After creation of the reference missions and designs the project will solicit industry studies and analysis for the purpose of contracting with several vendors for eventual hardware development.

The VSAT project design goals are:
Vertical array deployment on extended mast in uneven terrain
Deployment mechanisms, and array system, designed for reliable, autonomous retraction and system mobility
Array system designed to be modular, adaptable to multiple mission architectures, and to minimize mass and packing volume

Video credit: Lockheed Martin

Wikipedia dicit:

The Space Launch System (SLS) is an American super heavy-lift expendable launch vehicle used by NASA. As the primary launch vehicle of the Artemis Moon landing program, SLS is designed to launch the crewed Orion spacecraft on a trans-lunar trajectory. The first (and so far only) SLS launch was the uncrewed Artemis I, which took place on 16 November 2022.

Development of SLS began in 2011 as a replacement for the retiring Space Shuttle as well as the canceled Ares I and Ares V launch vehicles. SLS was built using existing Shuttle technology, including solid rocket boosters and RS-25 engines. The rocket has been criticized for its political motivations, seen as a way to preserve jobs and contracts for aerospace companies involved in the Shuttle program at great expense to NASA. The project has faced significant challenges, including mismanagement, substantial budget overruns, and significant delays. The first Congressionally mandated launch in late 2016 was delayed by nearly six years.

All Space Launch System flights are to be launched from Launch Complex 39B at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The first three SLS flights are expected to use the Block 1 configuration, comprising a core stage, extended Space Shuttle boosters developed for Ares I and the Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage (ICPS) upper stage. The improved Block 1B configuration, with the powerful and purpose-built Exploration Upper Stage (EUS), is planned to be introduced on the fourth flight; a further improved Block 2 configuration with new solid rocket boosters is planned for the ninth flight. After the launch of Artemis IV, NASA plans to transfer production and launch operations of SLS to Deep Space Transport LLC, a joint venture between Boeing and Northrop Grumman.

Video credit: NASA

Wikipedia dicit:

Artemis II is a scheduled mission of the NASA-led Artemis program. It will use the second launch of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and include the first crewed mission of the Orion spacecraft. The mission is scheduled to take place no earlier than April 2026. Four astronauts will perform a flyby of the Moon and return to Earth, becoming the first crew to travel beyond low Earth orbit since Apollo 17 in 1972. Artemis II will be the first crewed launch from Launch Complex 39B of the Kennedy Space Center since STS-116 in 2006.

Video credit: NASA

Wikipedia dicit:

The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES), operated by the United States’ National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service division, supports weather forecasting, severe storm tracking, and meteorology research. Spacecraft and ground-based elements of the system work together to provide a continuous stream of environmental data. The National Weather Service (NWS) and the Meteorological Service of Canada use the GOES system for their North American weather monitoring and forecasting operations, and scientific researchers use the data to better understand land, atmosphere, ocean, and climate dynamics.

The fourth-generation satellites, the GOES-R series, were built by Lockheed Martin using the A2100 satellite bus. The GOES-R series is a four-satellite program (GOES-R, -S, -T and -U) intended to extend the availability of the operational GOES satellite system through 2036. GOES-R launched on 19 November 2016. It was renamed GOES-16 upon reaching orbit. Second of the series GOES-S, was launched on 1 March 2018. It was renamed GOES-17 upon reaching orbit.

The instrument package for the GOES-R series includes:
Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI)
Space Environment In-Situ Suite (SEISS), which includes two Magnetospheric Particle Sensors (MPS-HI and MPS-LO), an Energetic Heavy Ion Sensor, and a Solar and Galactic Proton Sensor
Solar Imaging Suite, which includes the Solar Ultraviolet Imager (SUVI), the Solar X-Ray Sensor (XRS), and the Extreme Ultraviolet Sensor (EUVS)
Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM)
Magnetometer

Video credit: Lockheed Martin

They will always be remembered…

Apollo 1 (January 27, 1967)

Virgil “Gus” Grissom – Commander, Edward White – Command Pilot, Roger Chaffee – Pilot

STS-51 L (January 28, 1986)

Francis R. Scobee – Commander, Michael J. Smith – Pilot, Judith A. Resnik – Mission Specialist 1, Ellison Onizuka – Mission Specialist 2, Ronald E. McNair – Mission Specialist 3, Gregory B. Jarvis – Payload Specialist 1, Sharon Christa McAuliffe – Payload Specialist 2

STS-107 (February 1, 2003)

Rick D. Husband – Commander, William C. McCool – Pilot, Michael P. Anderson – Payload Commander, David M. Brown – Mission Specialist 1, Kalpana Chawla – Mission Specialist 2, Laurel Clark – Mission Specialist 3, Ilan Ramon – Payload Specialist 1

Video credit: NASA