NASA Chooses Firefly Aerospace for Artemis Commercial Moon Supply in 2023

NASA has awarded Firefly Aerospace of Cedar Park, Texas, approximately $93.3 million to deliver a set of 10 science investigations and technology demonstrations to the Moon in 2023. The delivery, planned for Mare Crisium, a low-lying basin on the Moon’s near side, will investigate a spread of lunar surface conditions and resources. Such investigations will help steel oneself against human missions to the lunar surface.

The award is a component of the agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, during which NASA is securing the service of economic partners to quickly land science and technology payloads on the lunar surface. 

The initiative may be a key part of NASA’s Artemis program. Firefly Aerospace is going to be liable for end-to-end delivery services, including payload integration, launch from Earth, landing on the Moon, and mission operations. this is often the sixth award for lunar surface delivery under the CLPS initiative.

“We’re excited another CLPS provider has won its first task order award. With this initiative, we seek to develop ways for brand spanking new science and technology development utilizing a service-based model,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for science at NASA Headquarters in Washington. 

“This allows U.S. vendors to not only demonstrate their ability to securely deliver payloads to our celestial neighbor but also expand this capability for others who want to require advantage of this leading-edge approach to explore the Moon.”

This is the primary delivery awarded to Firefly Aerospace, which can provide the lunar delivery service using its Blue Ghost lander, which the corporate designed and developed at its Cedar Park facility. 

This facility also will house the mixing of NASA and any non-NASA payloads, and also will function as the company’s mission operations center for the 2023 delivery. 

“The payloads we’re sending as a part of this delivery service span across multiple areas, from investigating the lunar soil and testing a sample capture technology, to giving us information about the Moon’s thermal properties and magnetic flux,” said Chris Culbert, manager of the CLPS initiative at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Mare Crisium, where Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost will land, maybe a quite 300-mile-wide basin where instruments will gather data to supply insight into the Moon’s regolith – loose, fragmented rock and soil – properties, geophysical characteristics, and therefore the interaction of solar radiation and Earth’s magnetic flux. 

The payloads, collectively expected to total 207 pounds (94 kg) in mass, include:

The Regolith Adherence Characterization (RAC), which can determine how lunar regolith sticks to a variety of materials exposed to the Moon's environment during landing and lander operations. Components are going to be derived from the Materials International space platform Experiment (MISSE) facility currently on the International space platform .

The Next Generation Lunar Retroreflectors (NGLR), which can function a target for lasers on Earth to exactly measure the space between Earth and therefore the Moon. The retroreflector which will fly this mission also will provide data that would be wont to understand various aspects of the lunar interior and address fundamental physics questions.

The Lunar Environment Heliospheric X-ray Imager (LEXI), which can capture images of the interaction of Earth's magnetosphere with the flow of charged particles from the Sun, called the solar radiation.

The Reconfigurable, Radiation Tolerant computing system (RadPC), which aims to demonstrate a radiation-tolerant computing technology. thanks to the Moon's lack of atmosphere and magnetic flux, radiation from the Sun are going to be a challenge for electronics. This investigation also will characterize the radiation effects on the lunar surface.

The Lunar Magnetotelluric Sounder (LMS), which is meant to characterize the structure and composition of the Moon’s mantle by studying electric and magnetic fields. 

The investigation will make use of a flight-spare magnetometer, a tool that measures magnetic fields, originally made for the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft currently orbiting Mars.

The Lunar Instrumentation for Subsurface Thermal Exploration with Rapidity (LISTER), which is meant to live heat be due the inside of the Moon. 

The probe will plan to drill 7 to 10 feet (2 to three meters) into the lunar regolith to research the Moon's thermal properties at different depths.

The Lunar PlanetVac (LPV), which is meant to accumulate lunar regolith from the surface and transfer it to other instruments that might analyze the fabric or put it during a container that another spacecraft could return to Earth.

Stereo CAmeras for Lunar Plume Surface Studies (SCALPSS 1.1), which can capture video and still images of the world under the lander from when the engine plume first disturbs the lunar surface through engine shutdown. 

Long-focal-length cameras will determine the pre-landing surface topography. Photogrammetry is going to be wont to reconstruct the changing surface during landing.

Understanding the physics of rocket exhaust on the regolith, and therefore the displacement of dust, gravel, and rocks is critical to understanding the way to best avoid kicking up surface materials during the terminal phase of flight/landing on the Moon and other celestial bodies.

The Electrodynamic Dust Shield (EDS), which can generate a non-uniform field using varying high voltage on multiple electrodes. 

This traveling field, in turn, carries away the particles and has potential applications in thermal radiators, spacesuit fabrics, visors, camera lenses, solar panels, and lots of other technologies. 

The Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment (LuGRE), which is predicated on GPS. LuGRE will still extend the reach of GPS signals and, if successful, be the primary to discern GPS signals at lunar distances.