World first at Calern: MéO laser station locates Blue Ghost lander on the Moon in record time

  • Research
Published on April 18, 2025 – Updated on April 18, 2025
Dates

on the March 28, 2025

Laser Meo
Laser Meo

A historic milestone has just been reached in Earth-Moon laser telemetry. 27 hours after the Blue Ghost mission landed on the Moon, a Geoazur team has succeeded in measuring the distance separating the Earth from the new NGLR-1 reflector, freshly deposited on a natural satellite, with remarkable accuracy. This technological feat opens up new perspectives for fundamental physics and the study of the Moon.

27 hours after the successful lunar landing of the Blue Ghost mission (NASA-CLPS Firefly Aerospace) on Sunday March 2, 2025, the GéoSIM team from the GEOAZUR laboratory (Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur, Université Côte d'Azur, CNRS, IRD) obtained the first distance measurements (358,758.807 km or 2393.381 ms for the round-trip time of flight of the light at 11h 38 minutes and 26 seconds UT) between the MéO station and the new NASA-NGLR-1 reflector deposited during the lunar landing. This world first opens up new scientific perspectives in Fundamental Physics and Seleno-Physics, thanks to the greater precision made possible by this new type of reflector.

Read the Geoazur press release