Blue Ghost Lunar Lander scheduled to launch on January 15th

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 is scheduled to launch at approximately 1:11 a.m. EST and will carry not only Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost 1 lander, but also the Resilience lander from Japanese robotic spacecraft firm iSpace. The ship will take 45 days to reach the Moon before spending another 14 days on ground operations. There’s no word yet on whether we’ll be able to see it take off.

The Firefly lander will carry 10 NASA payloads to the surface. They are designed to measure various particle compositions, thermal properties and electromagnetic activity of the Moon and Earth. It will collect data for applications ranging from improving landing and takeoff procedures to studying the Moon’s resources and history.

The so-called Lexi payload Particularly interesting is an X-ray machine that can read the Earth’s magnetic field. NASA will use this data to see how our magnetosphere interacts with solar winds, which could ultimately help pinpoint and track solar weather patterns that cause power outages on Earth and interfere with satellite and GPS systems.

This will be NASA’s second attempt to implement such technology. He first launched the device, then known as STORM, into space in 2012. However, it did not land on the Moon and was not able to obtain the full picture that LEXI’s wide-angle sensors will be able to obtain.