A private US spacecraft headed to the moon captures a glorious view of Earth

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A private U.S. spacecraft bound for the moon has captured stunning images of Earth one week into its flight.

Still circling Earth, Firefly Aerospace’s lunar lander fired its thrusters Thursday to put it on a path to reach the moon in over a month. Dubbed Blue Ghost, the spacecraft beamed back photos and video of the Blue Marble, our planet. The Texas company released the images Friday.

It carries experiments for NASA, part of the space agency’s effort to return astronauts to the moon this decade.

Blue Ghost is one of two lunar landers launched from Florida by SpaceX on Jan. 15. It’s targeting a moon touchdown on March 2. The other lander is sponsored by the Japanese company ispace and taking an even longer route, with a landing in late May or early June.

It’s the first moonshot for Firefly and the second for ispace, which crashed its first lander into the moon in 2023. Tokyo-based ispace’s latest lander, Resilience, is still orbiting Earth and performing all its maneuvers to close in on the moon.

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.