NASA Cameras on Blue Ghost Lander Capture Effects of Lunar Sunset
This is a view of light changes from a lunar sunset on the Moon's surface from NASA's SCALPSS cameras on Firefly's Blue Ghost Mission 1 lander. A compressed, resolution-limited Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) file shows the view of lunar sunset from one of the six Stereo Cameras for Lunar-Plume Surface Studies (SCALPSS) 1.1 cameras on Firefly’s Blue Ghost lander. It operated on the Moon’s surface for a little more than 14 days and stopped, as anticipated, a few hours into lunar night. SCALPSS was taking images every 10 minutes during the sunset. The bright, swirly light moving across the surface on the top right of the image is sunlight reflecting off the lander. Images taken by SCALPSS 1.1 during Blue Ghost’s descent and landing, as well as images from the surface during the long lunar day, will help researchers better understand the effects of a lander’s engine plumes on the lunar soil, or regolith.
The SCALPSS instrument collected almost 9,000 images and returned 10 GB of data. This data is important as trips to the Moon increase and the number of payloads touching down in proximity to one another grows. The SCALPSS 1.1 project is funded by the Space Technology Mission Directorate’s Game Changing Development program. SCALPSS was developed at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, with support from Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
This work was part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative and Artemis campaign to establish a long-term lunar presence. Blue Ghost Mission 1 performed science and technology demonstrations, including lunar subsurface drilling, sample collection, and X-ray imaging of Earth’s magnetic field to advance research for future human missions on the Moon, as well as to provide insights into space weather effects.
Learn more about CLPS: https://www.nasa.gov/clps
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