As eyes turn to Firefly Aerospace’s mission control for the company’s first attempt at landing on the moon, some watching may notice small models of the Blue Ghost lander sitting among the consoles.
As it turns out, the miniatures were not only placed there, but built there, too — and you can assemble your own.
“The day that we brought those over, they were putting them together right outside of mission control,” said Trina Patterson, vice president of marketing and communications at Firefly Aerospace, in an interview with collectSPACE.com. “During the more quiet times during this mission, they have been putting the little Legos together.”
Although not an official Lego-brand product, the Blue Ghost Mission 1 Building Blocks Set uses Lego-like bricks to form a detailed 1/18th scale version of the robotic probe. Firefly worked with Business Bricks to produce the custom set.
Created in part to support Firefly’s Mission 1 outreach activities — for example, some of the kits are prizes in Firefly’s “Moonwalk Contest” on the Player Epic smartphone app — they can also be purchased for $54.99 through the company’s online merch shop.
Related: What time will the private Blue Ghost probe land on the moon Sunday? How to watch live.
Mission 1 model
The Blue Ghost lander, which was named after a type of firefly, left Earth on Jan. 15 and is slated to land in Mare Crisium (“Sea of Crises”) on the moon no earlier than 3:34 a.m. EST (0834 GMT) on Sunday (March 2). Assuming a successful touchdown, the “Ghost Riders in the Sky” mission will begin two weeks of science using 10 NASA-provided instruments carried on board.
Assembling the block-version of Blue Ghost includes piecing together several of those payloads.
“It has LEXI on top,” said Patterson, pointing to a protrusion from the upper deck of the model.
LEXI, or the Lunar Environment heliospheric X-ray Imager, is designed to study the interaction of solar wind and Earth’s magnetic field, which drives geomagnetic disturbances and storms.
Also recreated in the build is LUGRE (Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment), a receiver to track GPS and Galileo navigation satellites throughout a full lunar day on the surface; NGLR (Next Generation Lunar Retroreflector), a mirror device to measure the distance between Earth and the moon; and RAC (Regolith Adherence Characterization), an experiment to compare the stickiness of lunar soil on different materials.
Other instruments flying on Blue Ghost as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative but were too small to model, or are covered so are not visible, include a pneumatic drill to measure heat flow from the interior of the moon (LISTER); a lunar regolith sample collection demonstrator (Lunar PlanetVac); and a stereo camera to capture the impact of the rocket plume on lunar regolith as the lander descends.
Lander components that are also recreated in bricks include the X-band antenna (installed next to LUGRE and NGLR); three solar panels, which provide power to the NASA instruments; eight reaction control system (RCS) thrusters; four shock-absorbing legs and the main engine at its base.
Related: Private Blue Ghost lander sees far side of the moon in breathtaking detail ahead of lunar landing (video)
As the building blocks set is configured specifically to the “Ghost Riders in the Sky” mission, Patterson said she expects other kits to follow as more Blue Ghost landers are launched to the moon.
“It is definitely something we want to continue, moving forward,” she said.
Of decals and a duck
The Blue Ghost Mission 1 Building Blocks Set is completed using an included sticker sheet, which add details to the solar panels, to the LUGRE and NGLR instruments (which is humorously labeled on the sheet as “Upper Antenna Thing,” referencing its placement with the X-Band antenna) and Firefly’s logo.
One decal that is not included, however, is “Duckner.”
“We have a mascot at Firefly, and he’s been all around. He showed up in a lot of our testing pictures,” Patterson told collectSPACE. “It’s a duck named ‘Duckner,’ and it is on the lander.”
“It’s a little easter egg,” she said.
It is also a science experiment. The small image of the yellow rubber ducky is printed on a low-cost material to see how it handles the extreme environment of outer space. Duckner is affixed under the rim of the X-Band antenna, such that it can be seen in photos sent back by Blue Ghost.
“We need to get some stickers printed and add him to a later version [of the model kit],” said Patterson with a laugh.
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