
SpaceX has today launched a Falcon 9 carrying several payloads to the Moon. This is notable because Falcon 9s tend to launch numerous times a week, but they usually just take satellites into Earth orbit, but this mission is a bit more ambitious. Aboard the Falcon 9 were Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lander and ispace's RESILIENCE lunar lander, both were deployed separately and can be seen in the stream as they start their trip.
The Blue Ghost lander, which was put into a lunar transfer orbit, will take about 45 days to get to the Moon. The lander's target site is Mare Crisium, one of the large dark patches on the natural satellite, which is also visible from Earth. Once there, it will deploy several NASA payloads “to perform numerous science and technology demonstrations, including lunar subsurface drilling, sample collection, and X-ray imaging of Earth’s magnetic field to advance research for future human missions on the Moon and provide insights into how space weather impacts the planet.”
A short while after the deployment of Blue Ghost, SpaceX deployed RESILIENCE, which is going the long way to the Moon and is not expected to land for four or five months. As part of the mission objectives, ispace will try to land on the Moon safely, deploy the TENACIOUS Micro Rover, explore the surface, and collect regolith.
The launch itself got off the ground at 1:11 a.m. ET from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. If you read Neowin's This Week in Rocket Launches, you'll be aware that the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket is reusable to help reduce costs. The first stage used in this launch has been used in four previous missions including Crew-9, RRT-1, and two Starlink missions. Today's launch was its fifth.
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