CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A non-public U.S. spacecraft certain for the moon has captured surprising photographs of Earth one week into its flight. Nonetheless circling Earth, Firefly Aerospace’s lunar lander fired its thrusters Thursday to place it on a trail to succeed in the moon in over a month. Dubbed Blue Ghost, the spacecraft beamed again pictures and video of the Blue Marble, our planet. The Texas corporate launched the photographs Friday. It carries experiments for NASA, a part of the distance company’s effort to go back astronauts to the moon this decade. Blue Ghost is considered one of two lunar landers introduced from Florida by way of SpaceX on Jan. 15. It’s concentrated on a moon landing on March 2. The opposite lander is subsidized by way of the Jap corporate ispace and taking a fair longer direction, with a touchdown in overdue Would possibly or early June.It’s the primary moonshot for Firefly and the second one for ispace, which crashed its first lander into the moon in 2023. Tokyo-based ispace’s newest lander, Resilience, remains to be orbiting Earth and acting all its maneuvers to near in at the moon.___The Related Press Well being and Science Division receives fortify from the Howard Hughes Scientific Institute’s Science and Instructional Media Crew and the Robert Picket Johnson Basis. The AP is simply accountable for all content material.
