Arthur McMiler
Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 will come equipped with 12 cameras, a vision processor and two floodlights from Redwire to support the lunar lander autonomously touchdown on the moon’s surface. The mission’s launch is scheduled around mid-January at the Kennedy Space Center, Redwire said Thursday.
The Jacksonville, Florida-based company noted that the mission is under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program designed to tap the private sector in developing science and technology payloads on moon exploration for scientific and industry goals. Firefly secured the CLPS contract to provide the Blue Ghost lunar lander, which the company delivered to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in August for environmental tests.
Redwire received in August 2021 a Firefly subcontract to supply the avionics and navigation systems of the mission’s lunar lander.
Track Record as a NASA Resource
Adam Biskner, Redwire Space Systems president, relayed the company’s pride in being a “trusted supplier” for Firefly’s Blue Ghost lunar lander. “Redwire’s flight-proven camera systems have proven to be a critical component for civil and commercial lunar missions, and we look forward to continuing to build on this heritage,” he said.
According to Redwire, its cameras have been used in NASA’s Artemis I and other CLPS missions. It is under contract to supply nine cameras, two floodlights and a vision navigation processor for Firefly’s Blue Ghost Mission 2 lunar lander, the company added.
In August 2021, Redwire Space topped NASA’s Break the Ice Lunar Challenge, winning $125,000 for a two-rover ice-digging system. The competition was geared at supporting the resource needs of the Artemis exploration program.
