Firefly Aerospace (Cedar Park, Texas, U.S.) has completed the development and assembly of its Blue Ghost lander structure and fluid systems, a critical milestone for Firefly’s first lunar mission slated to land on the moon in 2024 as part of NASA’s (Washington, D.C., U.S.) Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative. This mission is one of three task orders Firefly has won under NASA CLPS, accounting for more than $230 million in awards. Firefly’s ability to rapidly design, build and test the Blue Ghost lunar lander can be credited to its in-house manufacturing and test facilities. The lander’s core components, including the panels, struts, legs, harnesses, avionics, batteries and thrusters, were designed and built in-house using Firefly’s flight-proven carbon fiber used in the company’s Alpha and Elytra orbital vehicles, providing lightweight, stronger-than-metal structures (read “The Alpha launch vehicle: Designing performance in, cost out”). Read more: compositesworld.com/...