The first lunar lander mission is scheduled to launch in January, according to Firefly Aerospace. This means that none of the three commercial lander missions that were originally scheduled to launch in the fourth quarter of this year will actually launch.

On Nov. 25, Firefly said that it would launch its Blue Ghost 1 lander mission over the course of six days in mid-January. A SpaceX Falcon 9 will take out from Florida with the spacecraft.

After the spacecraft finished testing at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in October, the launch date was announced. In the release confirming the launch date, Firefly CEO Jason Kim remarked, “Blue Ghost aced environmental testing and proved the lander is performing 100% as expected.” “While we know there will be more challenges ahead, I’m confident this team has what it takes to softly touch down on the lunar surface and nail this mission.”

The spacecraft’s launch was initially scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2024, but the corporation did not provide a precise date. Joseph Marlin, the principal engineer of Firefly’s Elytra Dark spacecraft, again suggested a fourth-quarter launch date during a Lunar Exploration Analysis Group (LEAG) conference on October 29. However, he stated that he was unable to provide more precise details, implying that it depended on the availability of launch vehicles. At that time, he stated, “SpaceX is still sorting out its schedule,”

The company’s first lunar lander mission is called Blue Ghost. Through the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, the spacecraft will transport ten NASA payloads. In February 2021, Firefly received a $93.3 million task order from NASA for the mission, which was initially scheduled for launch in 2023. Whether the spacecraft is carrying any non-NASA payloads has not been disclosed by Firefly.

The corporation has named the mission “Ghost Riders in the Sky,” and it will run for roughly 60 days. The spacecraft will first operate in phasing orbits around the Earth for 45 days before traveling to the moon and putting into orbit. The spacecraft will land close to Mons Latreille, a volcanic formation in Mare Crisium on the moon’s northeastern near side. The lander is intended to stay in operation for several hours into the lunar night and throughout the whole two-week lunar day.

Up to three commercial lunar lander missions were originally scheduled to launch in the fourth quarter of this year, but none of them will now. In a financial announcement for its fiscal second quarter, the Japanese company iSpace said on November 12 that its Mission 2 lunar lander, which was previously scheduled to launch in December, will instead launch no early than January. The lander will launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9, just as Firefly.

During a Nov. 14 earnings call, Intuitive Machines revealed that its IM-2 mission, which had been aiming for a December or early January launch, will now launch on a Falcon 9 no earlier than February. The business did not provide an explanation for the slip.

However, Firefly might still be beaten to the moon’s surface by Intuitive Machines. The IM-2 mission will land around a week after launch, following a more direct path to the moon than the IM-1 mission, which launched in February 2024. According to Firefly’s Marlin, who spoke at the LEAG meeting, the two businesses have been talking about ways to deconflict their landings, such as making sure that communications don’t conflict.Firefly plans to launch its first lunar lander mission in January.

As a dynamic creature, our earth is always changing and adapting. Unbelievably, even something as seemingly trivial as how much water we use might alter Earth’s physical orientation.

Our groundwater pumping has caused the Earth to tilt 31.5 inches in less than 20 years. For comparison, this water redistribution corresponds to about 0.24 inches of sea level increase.

According to Ki-Weon Seo, a geophysicist at Seoul National University, “our study demonstrates that among climate-related causes, the redistribution of groundwater actually has the largest impact on the drift of the rotational pole.”

Therefore, keep in mind that even the tiniest actions have consequences before you discount the importance of your water usage.

What is groundwater, exactly?

The water that fills the voids left by soil, sand, and rock formations beneath the Earth’s surface is known as groundwater.

It originates from rain and other precipitation that seeps into the earth and slowly descends to subterranean reservoirs known as aquifers.

Groundwater is hidden away, functioning as nature’s covert water bank, in contrast to the water found in rivers and lakes.

It is essential to the water cycle because it supplies a consistent amount of water, even in dry seasons when surface water may be in short supply.

Groundwater is vital to many aspects of human life. It is the main supply of drinking water for many people, particularly in rural areas where surface water is scarce.

In order to irrigate crops and ensure that food production can continue even in the absence of sufficient rainfall, farmers rely on groundwater. Groundwater is also used by enterprises for cooling systems and manufacturing procedures.

Earth’s tilt and the role of groundwater

With data spanning from 1993 to 2010, the study demonstrated that the tilt of the Earth had shifted as a result of pumping up to 2,150 gigatons of groundwater.

Although it’s difficult to understand, these numbers show how much water we use for human consumption and irrigation.

The majority of our water is ultimately carried to the oceans, even though we may not consider its destination after use.

According to Seo, “Observing changes in Earth’s rotational pole is useful for understanding continent-scale water storage variations,” 

Connecting these differences to water movement, especially from northwest India and western North America, demonstrates how our daily activities can have a global impact on the planet.

Pole drift in rotation

Groundwater pumping not only affects the tilt and rotation of our earth, but it also presents a concerning image of the effects of climate change.

“I’m very glad to find the unexplained cause of the rotation pole drift. On the other hand, as a resident of Earth and a father, I’m concerned and surprised that pumping groundwater is another source of sea-level rise,” Seo added.

Given the difficulties we are already facing in the fight against climate change, these findings may seem overwhelming.

Nonetheless, knowing how groundwater pumping affects Earth’s tilt and climate is a positive start.

This information may help conservationists develop practical plans to slow down future sea level rise and other climate-related problems.

Pumping groundwater and polar motion

Our comprehension of climate change and our ability to take action are expanded by the recent discoveries on groundwater pumping.

“They’ve quantified the role of groundwater pumping on polar motion, and it’s pretty significant,” stated Surendra Adhikari, a research scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

This knowledge of the worldwide effects of groundwater pumping ought to encourage us to reevaluate how much water we use on a daily basis.

Upcoming studies and policy projects

In light of the study’s important conclusions, sustainable groundwater management must be given top priority in future research and policy activities in order to lessen its negative effects on climate change and Earth’s rotation.

Innovative approaches to water use, such improved irrigation systems, rainwater collecting, and better municipal water management, are necessary to strike a balance between human requirements and environmental conservation.

Furthermore, in order to develop comprehensive policies that address the fair distribution and usage of water resources, international collaboration among nations is crucial.

We can create a strong foundation for more sustainable water management techniques by promoting interdisciplinary cooperation between geophysicists, climate scientists, decision-makers, and the general public.

Such programs support larger efforts to mitigate climate change in addition to having the potential to preserve Earth’s rotational stability.

Earth tilting due to water taps

The process of comprehending and addressing climate change is a protracted and intricate one. However, in this conflict, information is power.

Comprehending the effects of groundwater pumping is a crucial weapon in our toolbox.

Let’s use this information to our advantage as we look to the future and work toward a more sustainable world.

There is mounting evidence that Mars was once wet and sloshy, covered in lakes and oceans that lapped at shorelines and left behind sediments that are currently being examined by robots rolling across the now-dusty and dry surface.

There was water. We are certain that it was. It’s a little more difficult to piece together where it went, when it happened, and how. There was liquid water on Mars less than a billion years ago, according to a meteorite that was blasted from the planet 11 million years ago and then traveled to Earth. This is a significant clue, though.

A recent study of the Lafayette Meteorite has revealed that minerals in it were produced 742 million years ago when water was present. It indicates that Mars may occasionally still be somewhat damp and represents a significant advancement in the dating of water minerals on the planet.

“Dating these minerals can therefore tell us when there was liquid water at or near the surface of Mars in the planet’s geologic past,” explains Marissa Tremblay, a geochemist from Purdue University in the United States.

“We dated these minerals in the Martian meteorite Lafayette and found that they formed 742 million years ago. We do not think there was abundant liquid water on the surface of Mars at this time. Instead, we think the water came from the melting of nearby subsurface ice called permafrost, and that the permafrost melting was caused by magmatic activity that still occurs periodically on Mars to the present day.”

Among the materials under concern is iddingsite, a kind of rock that is created when volcanic basalt is exposed to liquid water. Iddingsite, which is found in the Lafayette Meteorite, coincidentally has argon inclusions in it.

Although it can be a little challenging, dating minerals has become considerably easier as technology has advanced. For argon isotopes, a method known as radiometric dating can be applied to get an exact record of the element’s formation time. Although potassium decays radioactively to produce argon, a single sample of the isotope argon-40 can nevertheless be dated in the absence of potassium.

This is because the amount of potassium that was previously there determines how much of the lighter isotope argon-39 is produced when argon-40 is bombarded in a nuclear reactor. Because potassium decays at a predictable pace, scientists can determine how long it has been since the rock formed by using the argon-39 that is created as a stand-in for potassium.

To determine how long it had been since water and rock had combined to form iddingsite, the researchers applied this method to a tiny sample of the Lafayette meteorite.

Rocks can potentially be altered by being expelled from Mars after an impact event, speeding through the Solar System, and then colliding with Earth through its atmosphere while being heated throughout the descent. The temperature variations that the meteorite encountered during its lengthy voyage were modeled and taken into consideration by the researchers, who were also able to ascertain whether or not they would have affected the sample’s apparent age.

“The [estimated] age could have been affected by the impact that ejected the Lafayette Meteorite from Mars, the heating Lafayette experienced during the 11 million years it was floating out in space, or the heating Lafayette experienced when it fell to Earth and burned up a little bit in Earth’s atmosphere,” Tremblay explains.

“But we were able to demonstrate that none of these things affected the age of aqueous alteration in Lafayette.”

New limitations on the known date of wetness on Mars are imposed by the findings. The study also discovered that the new date aligns with a time when Mars’s volcanic activity is at its highest. Though recent measurements by the Mars InSight lander have shown that there is a lot more going on inside the planet than its naive appearance suggests, such activity seems considerably quieter currently.

However, the findings are not limited to how we perceive Mars. The team’s methods could help us better grasp the Solar System and the long-standing, contentious issue of how Earth obtained its water billions of years ago.

“We have demonstrated a robust way to date alteration minerals in meteorites that can be applied to other meteorites and planetary bodies to understand when liquid water might have been present,” explains Tremblay.