Private Lunar Lander Blue Ghost Aces Moon Touchdown

Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lander successfully touched down on the moon, making it the first private company to achieve a stable lunar landing without crashing. The craft is carrying various NASA-funded experiments, including a "vacuum to suck up moon dirt for analysis and a drill to measure temperature as deep as 10 feet (3 meters) below the surface," reports the Associated Press. There's also "a device for eliminating abrasive lunar dust -- a scourge for NASA's long-ago Apollo moonwalkers, who got it caked all over their spacesuits and equipment." From the report: A half hour after landing, Blue Ghost started to send back pictures from the surface, the first one a selfie somewhat obscured by the sun's glare. The second shot included the home planet, a blue dot glimmering in the blackness of space. Blue Ghost -- named after a rare U.S. species of fireflies -- had its size and shape going for it. The squat four-legged lander stands 6-foot-6 (2 meters) tall and 11 feet (3.5 meters) wide, providing extra stability, according to the company.

Launched in mid-January from Florida, the lander carried 10 experiments to the moon for NASA. The space agency paid $101 million for the delivery, plus $44 million for the science and tech on board. It's the third mission under NASA's commercial lunar delivery program, intended to ignite a lunar economy of competing private businesses while scouting around before astronauts show up later this decade.

Firefly's Ray Allensworth said the lander skipped over hazards including boulders to land safely. Allensworth said the team continued to analyze the data to figure out the lander's exact position, but all indications suggest it landed within the 328-foot (100-meter) target zone in Mare Crisium. The demos should get two weeks of run time, before lunar daytime ends and the lander shuts down.

Dupe?

[wgoodman]

This is a couple days old.. didn't we already have this news?

Re:

[jfdavis668]

Slashdot time.

How does it work?

[ukoda]

How does a "vacuum to suck up moon dirt for analysis" work in a vacuum? A normal vacuum cleaner is creating a low pressure to make air move into the vacuum cleaner's intake. However on the moon there is no air to create a pressure differential. I thought they would have to use a scoop or maybe an electrostatic force?

Re:

[flyingfsck]

I'm wondering about this vacuum vacuum also. My guess is that it would vent off a tiny bit of unused fuel to whip up a little dust.

Re:How does it work?

[Barny]

Well, it's kinda obvious. No matter where you are in the universe, your life could always suck a little more.

Re:

[drinkypoo]

It works better than Slashdot does right now. 500! 500! page load. 500!

I googled "blue ghost vacuum" and the explanation was on the first page of results. HTH, HAND!

sigh

[drinkypoo]

If only Slashdot had an edit function... wait, it does, it's called preview

anyway,

https://www.nasa.gov/missions/... [nasa.gov]

Re:

[ukoda]

I Googled "how can a vacuum work in a vacuum?", the results where useless. After that I got lazy and asked here since I figured other people would read the article and wonder the same thing and a smart person here would know the answer. You get the consolation prize for "Best link to the answer after an edit" ;-)

Re:

[drinkypoo]

Logically it had to involve a pressure differential, because that's all that powers it here. I didn't know if they were just using pressure or being more serious about it (as they are) until I googled it.

I didn't use that info in my search, though. My keywords were: blue ghost vacuum

Re:

[drinkypoo]

Also why not just self reply one more time because this is already ridiculous, I see I posted those before upthread. Yay for beer.

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

It's not really a vacuum at all, from the sounds of it. They describe it as shooting some gas into the regolith to stir it up, and then using some pneumatic jets to funnel that into a sample container. Lots of blowing, but no sucking.

Re:How does it work?

[chiefcrash]

The Lunar PlanetVac (LPV) is a pneumatic, compressed gas-powered sample acquisition and delivery system – described as "a vacuum cleaner that brings its own gas." The LPV’s sampling head will use pressurized gas to stir up the lunar regolith, creating a small tornado. If successful, material from the dust cloud it creates then will be funneled into a transfer tube via the payload’s secondary pneumatic jets and collected in a sample container.

Which to me, sounds less like a vacuum cleaner and more like a can of air duster pointed at a funnel....

Re:

[Iamthecheese]

You never had a probe'n'blow? It's quite the experience. I'm not sure how a robot compares, but I'm sure the moon will be happy.

Re:

[CohibaVancouver]

would never click on an AP link

Your Slashdot post history is 95% lies, yet you won't click a link? How peculiar.

(I'm old enough to remember when Republicans used to embrace facts. Now you wrap yourself in lies and run from facts like frightened kittens. It's such a shame. Facts are empowering.)

Launched in mid-January from Florida

[groobly]

Launched in mid-January from Florida. Interesting. I wonder who actually launched it? Florida, I guess.

I note that every outlet except possibly Fox has judiciously avoided mentioning that this object was launched by SpaceX.