Space Launches

On Wednesday, January 15 at 1:11 a.m. ET, Falcon 9 launched Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Also on board this mission was ispace’s RESILIENCE lunar lander.

This was the fifth flight for the first stage booster supporting this mission, which previously launched Crew-9, RRT-1, and two Starlink missions.

After it deployed into a lunar transfer orbit, the Blue Ghost lander began its approximate 45-day journey to the Moon, where it will land in Mare Crisium for NASA’s 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.