Private lunar lander aces moon touchdown with delivery for NASA

Private lunar lander Blue Ghost aces moon touchdown with special delivery for NASA

- Ever wondered why all those gorgeous deep space images from the James Webb Space Telescope are referred to as colorized? Maybe you have, maybe you haven't, but I'm gonna tell you the answer all the same. It's because if you were to float out into space and look at the exact same thing the space camera was examining, you'd see almost nothing like most of the time. That's because JWST is first and foremost, an infrared telescope. Humans register infrared as heat, not visible light, so we actually wouldn't be able to see what the telescope sees without a little bit of fun computer processing. That doesn't mean the images aren't real. They're super real. They've just gone through a visual key change of sorts. The colorization of images is a seriously intense process. I'm not gonna be able to detail every step here, but at a basic level, you start by collecting all of the images taken by the telescope of one object. Each original image is taken with a different filter meant to best capture the presence of a specific thing. One might best capture hydrogen, and another might grab oxygen, for example, but all of the images at this point are black and white, so the experts have to add the color, and they do it by assigning wavelengths captured by the filters to the colors a screen can produce. The image from the filter that captures the longest wavelength of light, gets assigned to the color red, the color with the longest wavelength we can see. The shortest wavelength image gets colored blue, which is the color with the shortest wavelength, and green, purple, teal and orange get assigned to filters with wavelengths in the middle as needed. Now, you just put 'em all together, and you get, pun intended, the whole picture. We call this a composite image. From there, the making it pretty part is actually a fair amount like normal photo editing, with things like fine-tuning the white balance and adding visual depth. It's just more science-guided than your average Photoshop session, because no one wants to lose any information in the beautification process. And there you have it, a formerly, almost totally invisible photo has been turned into this, or this, or this. Seems worth it to me.

Private lunar lander Blue Ghost aces moon touchdown with special delivery for NASA

A private lunar lander carrying a drill, vacuum and other experiments for NASA touched down on the moon Sunday, the latest in a string of companies looking to kickstart business on Earth's celestial neighbor ahead of astronaut missions.Related video above: How Colorized James Webb Space Telescope Images Detail the UniverseFirefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander descended from lunar orbit on autopilot, aiming for the slopes of an ancient volcanic dome in an impact basin on the moon’s northeastern edge of the near side.Confirmation of the successful touchdown came from the company's Mission Control outside Austin, Texas, following the action some 225,000 miles (360,000 kilometers) away.“You all stuck the landing. We’re on the moon,” Firefly’s Will Coogan, chief engineer for the lander, reported.An upright and stable landing makes Firefly — a startup founded a decade ago — the first private outfit to put a spacecraft on the moon without crashing or falling over. Even countries have faltered, with only five claiming success: Russia, the U.S., China, India and Japan.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.Two other companies’ landers are hot on Blue Ghost’s heels, with the next one expected to join it on the moon later this week.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 feet, 6 inches (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.It carried 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. Also on board is 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.On its way to the moon, Blue Ghost beamed back exquisite pictures of the home planet. The lander continued to stun once in orbit around the moon, with detailed shots of the moon's gray, pockmarked surface. At the same time, an onboard receiver tracked and acquired signals from the U.S. GPS and European Galileo constellations, an encouraging step forward in navigation for future explorers.The landing set the stage for a fresh crush of visitors angling for a piece of lunar business.Another lander — a tall and skinny 15-footer (4 meters tall) built and operated by Houston-based Intuitive Machines — is due to land on the moon Thursday. It’s aiming for the bottom of the moon, just 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the south pole. That’s closer to the pole than the company got last year with its first lander, which broke a leg and tipped over.Despite the tumble, Intuitive Machines' lander put the U.S. back on the moon for the first time since NASA astronauts closed out the Apollo program in 1972.A third lander from the Japanese company ispace is still three months from landing. It shared a rocket ride with Blue Ghost from Cape Canaveral on Jan. 15, taking a longer, windier route. Like Intuitive Machines, ispace is also attempting to land on the moon for the second time. Its first lander crashed in 2023.The moon is littered with wreckage not only from ispace, but dozens of other failed attempts over the decades.NASA wants to keep up a pace of two private lunar landers a year, realizing some missions will fail, said the space agency's top science officer Nicky Fox.“It really does open up a whole new way for us to get more science to space and to the moon," Fox said.Unlike NASA’s successful Apollo moon landings that had billions of dollars behind them and ace astronauts at the helm, private companies operate on a limited budget with robotic craft that must land on their own, said Firefly CEO Jason Kim.Kim said everything went like clockwork.“We got some moon dust on our boots," Kim said.___The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. —

Related video above: How Colorized James Webb Space Telescope Images Detail the Universe

Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander descended from lunar orbit on autopilot, aiming for the slopes of an ancient volcanic dome in an impact basin on the moon’s northeastern edge of the near side.

Confirmation of the successful touchdown came from the company's Mission Control outside Austin, Texas, following the action some 225,000 miles (360,000 kilometers) away.

“You all stuck the landing. We’re on the moon,” Firefly’s Will Coogan, chief engineer for the lander, reported.

An upright and stable landing makes Firefly — a startup founded a decade ago — the first private outfit to put a spacecraft on the moon without crashing or falling over. Even countries have faltered, with only five claiming success: Russia, the U.S., China, India and Japan.

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.

Private lunar lander Blue Ghost after touching down on the moon with a special delivery for NASA Sunday, March 2, 2025.

(NASA/Firefly Aerospace via AP)

Two other companies’ landers are hot on Blue Ghost’s heels, with the next one expected to join it on the moon later this week.

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 feet, 6 inches (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.

It carried 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. Also on board is 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.

On its way to the moon, Blue Ghost beamed back exquisite pictures of the home planet. The lander continued to stun once in orbit around the moon, with detailed shots of the moon's gray, pockmarked surface. At the same time, an onboard receiver tracked and acquired signals from the U.S. GPS and European Galileo constellations, an encouraging step forward in navigation for future explorers.

The landing set the stage for a fresh crush of visitors angling for a piece of lunar business.

Another lander — a tall and skinny 15-footer (4 meters tall) built and operated by Houston-based Intuitive Machines — is due to land on the moon Thursday. It’s aiming for the bottom of the moon, just 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the south pole. That’s closer to the pole than the company got last year with its first lander, which broke a leg and tipped over.

Despite the tumble, Intuitive Machines' lander put the U.S. back on the moon for the first time since NASA astronauts closed out the Apollo program in 1972.

A third lander from the Japanese company ispace is still three months from landing. It shared a rocket ride with Blue Ghost from Cape Canaveral on Jan. 15, taking a longer, windier route. Like Intuitive Machines, ispace is also attempting to land on the moon for the second time. Its first lander crashed in 2023.

The moon is littered with wreckage not only from ispace, but dozens of other failed attempts over the decades.

NASA wants to keep up a pace of two private lunar landers a year, realizing some missions will fail, said the space agency's top science officer Nicky Fox.

“It really does open up a whole new way for us to get more science to space and to the moon," Fox said.

Unlike NASA’s successful Apollo moon landings that had billions of dollars behind them and ace astronauts at the helm, private companies operate on a limited budget with robotic craft that must land on their own, said Firefly CEO Jason Kim.

Kim said everything went like clockwork.

“We got some moon dust on our boots," Kim said.

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

��vlog

Private lunar lander Blue Ghost aces moon touchdown with special delivery for NASA

Top Picks

����vlog

Private lunar lander Blue Ghost aces moon touchdown with special delivery for NASA

Share

Share

Share

Top Picks

��vlog