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February 09, 2021

Airborne-Unmanned 02.09.21: Firefly Aerospace, Airspeeder, UAV Pilot Busted

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Firefly Aerospace has received an award from NASA for $93.3 million to deliver a suite of ten NASA-sponsored science and technology demonstration payloads to Mare Crisium in the Moon’s Crisium basin. Firefly’s ‘Blue Ghost’ lunar lander will deliver the payloads to the lunar surface in 2023 in fulfillment of Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) task order 19D, managed by NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. Blue Ghost (named after a breed of rare firefly) will operate on-board payloads through lunar transit, during lunar orbit, and on the lunar surface for a complete lunar day (about 14 Earth days) and well into the freezing dark of lunar night. Airspe

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Perseverance Readies For Mars Landing

Rover Landing Attempt To Be Made In Tricky Terrain

After a nearly seven-month journey to Mars, NASA’s Perseverance rover is slated to land at the Red Planet’s Jezero Crater Feb.18, 2021, a rugged expanse chosen for its scientific research and sample collection possibilities. But the very features that make the site fascinating to scientists also make it a relatively dangerous place to land – a challenge that has motivated rigorous testing here on Earth for the lander vision system (LVS) that the rover will count on to safely touch down.