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A SpaceX Falcon 9 is set to launch at approximately 1:11 AM Eastern Standard Time, carrying two separate lunar landers: Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost 1 and the Resilience lander developed by the Japanese robotics company, iSpace. It is expected to take around 45 days for the spacecraft to reach the Moon before spending a 14-day period conducting operations on the lunar surface. Unfortunately, details on whether the launch will be viewable have not been made public.
They will measure what’s on the surface, including particles, heat properties, and radiation coming from both the Moon and the Earth. It will collect information that can be used for things like making landing and takeoff safer, and learning about the Moon’s resources and its past.
This is particularly fascinating – it’s an x-ray machine that can “read” the Earth’s magnetic field. NASA intends to utilize the collected data to comprehend how the Earth’s magnetic field interacts with solar winds, which might ultimately enable more accurate detection and tracking of solar weather patterns responsible for power outages on Earth and disruptions to satellite and GPS systems.
This would be NASA’s second try to send up such technology. The first one, known as STORM, was launched into space back in 2012. Unfortunately, it didn’t end up on the moon, and its images didn’t provide the detailed wide-angle views that LEXI’s sensors will be able to capture.
