Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Firefly Blue Ghost Mission 1 Lunar Landing

plus.nasa.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 43 posts

Re: Firefly Blue Ghost Mission 1 Lunar Landing

#11

Post by brookst »

qingcharles wrote: post #10
_mitterpach wrote: post #2

Related: https://nyxspace.com/blog/2025/02/21/nyx-space-and-rust-powe... Hope this one goes differently to my landings in Kerbal Space Program. From the wiki I read that this is a part of the Artemis program, but the connection seems unclear to me. Could anybody explain, will this be used to deliver just cargo or will it have people aboard sometime in the future?

Me in Space Shuttle Simulator during liftoff: "I wonder what this red switch does?" Space Shuttle: bang

You know, everyone’s obsessed with training and knowledge and practice, but it’s so much more satisfying to do something amazing by just flipping switches and pushing buttons at random.

Re: Firefly Blue Ghost Mission 1 Lunar Landing

#12

Post by walrus01 »

_mitterpach wrote: post #2

Related: https://nyxspace.com/blog/2025/02/21/nyx-space-and-rust-powe... Hope this one goes differently to my landings in Kerbal Space Program. From the wiki I read that this is a part of the Artemis program, but the connection seems unclear to me. Could anybody explain, will this be used to deliver just cargo or will it have people aboard sometime in the future?

After figuring out how to do most things successfully in Kerbal space program, a fun challenge is to install the "real solar system" mod which scales the delta v require for low orbit, and size of the solar system , up to approximately the same as reality. Delta v to orbit in stock KSP is like 2300-2500 if I remember right, in RSS it's 7800-8200. Everything else is also correspondingly more difficult like delta v require to get from a 35 degree inclined low earth orbit into a mars transfer orbit (even assuming 100% aero braking at mars and little or no fuel used at arrival)

Re: Firefly Blue Ghost Mission 1 Lunar Landing

#13

Post by walrus01 »

riffraff wrote: post #3

An interesting part of the payload is LuGRE, an experiment designed to test reception of GNSS (GPS, Galileo) signals on the moon, which would be double the maximum distance tested until now. I never imagined that geolocation systems could work outside of the earth.

The approximately 1600MHz signals emitted from a gps satellite are generally aimed directly down at the earth at any given time, but with a good enough receiver and directional gain antenna on the moon you certainly could pick them up.

I also have a theory this might work because at any given point in time, some of the gps satellites while moving at their orbital altitudes might be emitting signals aimed somewhat more directly towards the moon, at least for short periods of time.

Re: Firefly Blue Ghost Mission 1 Lunar Landing

#14

Post by yonatan8070 »

riffraff wrote: post #3

An interesting part of the payload is LuGRE, an experiment designed to test reception of GNSS (GPS, Galileo) signals on the moon, which would be double the maximum distance tested until now. I never imagined that geolocation systems could work outside of the earth.

If it works, we should probably rename it to UNSS

Re: Firefly Blue Ghost Mission 1 Lunar Landing

#15

Post by elkshadow5 »

_mitterpach wrote: post #2

Related: https://nyxspace.com/blog/2025/02/21/nyx-space-and-rust-powe... Hope this one goes differently to my landings in Kerbal Space Program. From the wiki I read that this is a part of the Artemis program, but the connection seems unclear to me. Could anybody explain, will this be used to deliver just cargo or will it have people aboard sometime in the future?

Main goal is to deliver some NASA science gear to the Moon, I think some of it is supposed to test things directly related to issues Artemis may have as far as lunar operations go. There’s a limited amount of info available about the science on their website- https://fireflyspace.com/missions/blue-ghost-mission-1/

Re: Firefly Blue Ghost Mission 1 Lunar Landing

#16

Post by gostsamo »

dweekly wrote: post #9
riffraff wrote: post #3

An interesting part of the payload is LuGRE, an experiment designed to test reception of GNSS (GPS, Galileo) signals on the moon, which would be double the maximum distance tested until now. I never imagined that geolocation systems could work outside of the earth.

The pedant in me is curious if we would have to call it something different than geolocation. :)

but the pedant in you has no issue that navigation is used outside of the sea?

I've always been annoyed when I see words like moonquake or marsquake, like earthquake is used for the planet and not for the dearth under your feet.

IMHO, creating neologism for the sake of neologism creates the burden to parse them instead of adding additional clarity.

Re: Firefly Blue Ghost Mission 1 Lunar Landing

#17

Post by Polizeiposaune »

walrus01 wrote: post #13
riffraff wrote: post #3

An interesting part of the payload is LuGRE, an experiment designed to test reception of GNSS (GPS, Galileo) signals on the moon, which would be double the maximum distance tested until now. I never imagined that geolocation systems could work outside of the earth.

The approximately 1600MHz signals emitted from a gps satellite are generally aimed directly down at the earth at any given time, but with a good enough receiver and directional gain antenna on the moon you certainly could pick them up. I also have a theory this might work because at any given point in time, some of the gps satellites while moving at their orbital altitudes might be emitting signals aimed somewhat mor…

See https://www.gpsworld.com/gps-iir-iir-m-satellite-antenna-pat...

"The use of GPS signals for spacecraft navigation has increased in general over the last few decades. Navigation employing GPS observations for spacecraft in low-Earth orbit is now considered routine.

"However, the situation is quite different for spacecraft that fly in the Space Service Volume above the GPS constellation, including medium-Earth orbit (MEO), geostationary orbit (GEO) and high-Earth orbit (HEO) satellites, as well as missions to the Moon and beyond.

"For these spacecraft, reception of GPS transmit antenna side lobe signals is essential to improve availability and performance of on-board navigation and timing. In this context, the knowledge of the full antenna pattern (main lobe and side lobes) from the transmitting antennas of each of the GPS satellites is essential."

So the signal is strongest between GPS satellite and the Earth, but the beam doesn't have sharp edges and enough of it misses the earth to be useful in higher orbits, even above the GPS constellation..

Re: Firefly Blue Ghost Mission 1 Lunar Landing

#18

Post by walrus01 »

Polizeiposaune wrote: post #17
walrus01 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The approximately 1600MHz signals emitted from a gps satellite are generally aimed directly down at the earth at any given time, but with a good enough receiver and directional gain antenna on the moon you certainly could pick them up. I also have a theory this might work because at any given point in time, some of the gps satellites while moving at their orbital altitudes might be emitting signals aimed somewhat mor…

See https://www.gpsworld.com/gps-iir-iir-m-satellite-antenna-pat... "The use of GPS signals for spacecraft navigation has increased in general over the last few decades. Navigation employing GPS observations for spacecraft in low-Earth orbit is now considered routine. "However, the situation is quite different for spacecraft that fly in the Space Service Volume above the GPS constellation, including medium-Earth orbi…

A good part of that would be because GPS satellites orbit considerably higher than all LEO stuff, at approx 20,000 km, so everything in low earth orbit is almost equally as blanketed in valid GPS signal as things at 0 meters MSL on the ground on a beach.

Something orbiting at 550 km is approx 0.027 of the total orbital altitude of a 20,200 km orbit NAVSTAR series GPS satellite.

Re: Firefly Blue Ghost Mission 1 Lunar Landing

#19

Post by exsomet »

qingcharles wrote: post #10
_mitterpach wrote: post #2

Related: https://nyxspace.com/blog/2025/02/21/nyx-space-and-rust-powe... Hope this one goes differently to my landings in Kerbal Space Program. From the wiki I read that this is a part of the Artemis program, but the connection seems unclear to me. Could anybody explain, will this be used to deliver just cargo or will it have people aboard sometime in the future?

Me in Space Shuttle Simulator during liftoff: "I wonder what this red switch does?" Space Shuttle: bang

I’m something of an expert in lunar landings myself, having years of experience in Space Engineers.

In my opinion, the most effective strategy is to fly full speed at the moon, crashing headlong into it before it realizes you’re there and can run away.

Post reply on HN