... LUSEE-Night will probably not operate until very late in the lunar day. The lander is designed to survive the lunar night, in fact to operate in the lunar night:
www.nasa.gov/solar-system/nasa-depart... […]
I'm back from a trip to the edge of the universe (AKA Hornby Island BC). I had mentioned payloads on BGM2 earlier, but here's a bit more about them. This is the website for the Rashid 2 rover:
https://www.mbrsc.ae/rashid-rover/
The original description of the LuSEE-Night payload said it had to […]
Two maps focus on the landing site for BGM2. At left a context map shows the site on the rim of a small crater - but actually there are two sites only 250 m apart. At right they are shown in more detail. The second was announced in 2024, presumably a small refinement in the location.
However, nothing is quite as final as it seems. A year later (2024) Benjamin Saliwanchik (Brookhaven) et al. gave very slightly different coordinates - only 250 m from the Bale site. The map on the right here shows both points. Fine-tuning like this is very […]
[Original post on mastodon.social]
A map of the central farside showing two locations for BGM2 and LuSEE-Night. At left is the one announced in a press release from Brookhaven National Laboratory, but a second site further east was announced by one of the mission team, Stuart Bale. That appears to be the final choice.
Where will BGM2 and its LuSEE-NIght payload go? This map takes us closer to the target area. A press release from Brookhaven gave a location near Nassau crater, shown yesterday, but in the same year Stuart Bale (UC Berkeley) gave different coordinates on the […]
[Original post on mastodon.social]
Several more sites for LuSEE-Night were identified further south, running from north of Mare Ingenii to the north rim of Apollo basin. Two sites are near the 180 meridian, and in 2023 the science team announced their target on the north rim of Nassau crater.
Burns found more sites around 20 degrees south across the central far side. Location 2 had 2 candidates just east and west of the 180 meridian. In 2023 the mission team announced a target for the mission (the main payload gets to choose the landing site). It […]
[Original post on mastodon.social]
Potential sites for the LuSEE-Night radio astronomy payload identified by Jack Burns in 2022. The map shows an area on the west side of Korolev, a large basin on the far side of the Moon. Among the many craters are several hilltop sites ideal for the experiment. Four are identified here.
Burns located some sites on the far side near Korolev basin in 2022, shown in this map. Another set of sites was further south.
#moon #BGM2
The LuSEE-Night payload on BGM2 is described here:
www.colorado.edu/ness/projects/lunar-surf...
It's one of two LuSEE payloads. The other, LuSEE-Lite, will go to another location later.
Site selection has been described in several meetings […]
Rashid 1 flew with ispace's Hakuto-R mission 1 which crashed. Second time lucky, I hope. All these payloads are described on that mission website. Also on that list is the obscurely-named User Terminal from JPL which will commission the Pathfinder relay. Tomorrow we will look at the landing site […]
The BGM2 relay is Firefly's own and the first of several. As well as relaying data it has a high resolution camera system. The lander is designed to survive the night and could operate for quite a while. The mission also deploys Pathfinder, a European relay satellite, in lunar orbit. These […]
We are looking a few months ahead at lunar missions early next year. Griffin, Blue Moon, Vertex... also set for roughly the same period - but no fixed dates yet for any of them - is Firefly's Blue Ghost Mission 2 (BGM2). Here is their website for it […]
#BlueGhost
Firefly Aerospace Adds UAE’s Rashid 2 Rover to Blue Ghost Mission to the Far Side of the Moon
The rover will join Firefly’s second lunar mission in 2026 in addition to other payloads, incl. NASA’s LuSEE-Night radio telescope.
@firefly-aerospace.bsky.social 🧪🔭 #BGM2
