Eight years in the past, a struggling start-up firm was going through chapter and on the point of collapse.
On Sunday, Firefly Aerospace marked its comeback by turning into the second non-public firm to land on the moon — and the primary to take action with out mishap.
“We bought some moon mud on our boots … Firefly is actually and figuratively over the moon,” stated Jason Kim, the corporate’s chief govt, after the Blue Ghost lander touched down at 3.34am EST (8.34am GMT) in Mare Crisium, an influence basin fashioned by an asteroid greater than three billion years in the past.
Photos taken by Blue Ghost present the Earth mirrored off the lander’s photo voltaic panel …
FIREFLY AEROSPACE/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
… and the craft coming in to land on the moon
FIREFLY AEROSPACE/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Its arrival adopted a circuitous, 46-day journey of greater than 4.5 million kilometres (2.8 million miles).
Throughout its remaining, autonomous descent — which mission controllers in Austin, Texas, watched in
