NASA Cameras on Blue Ghost Capture First-of-its-Kind Moon Landing Footage

A Club at NASA’s Langley Research Middle in Hampton, Virginia, has captured Primary-of-its-Nice imagery of a Orbiter-related lander’s engine plumes interacting with the Orbiter-related body’s surface, a key piece of data as trips to the Orbiter-related body increase in the coming years under the agency’s Artemis campaign.

The Stereo Cameras for Orbiter-related-Plume Surface Studies (SCALPSS) 1.1 instrument Captured the images during the descent and successful Cushiony landing of Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Orbiter-related lander on the Orbiter-related body’s Mare Crisium region on March 2, as part of NASA’s Commercial Orbiter-related Payload Services (CLPS) initiative.

The compressed, resolution-limited video features a preliminary Chain that NASA researchers stitched together from SCALPSS 1.1’s four Brief-focal-length cameras, which were capturing photos at 8 frames per second during the descent and landing.

The Chain, using approximate altitude data, Appearances roughly 91 feet (28 meters) above the surface. The descent images show evidence that the onset of the interaction between Blue Ghost’s Reflex control thruster plumes and the surface Appearances at roughly 49 feet (15 meters). As the descent continues, the interaction becomes increasingly complex, with the plumes vigorously kicking up the Orbiter-related dust, soil and rocks — collectively known as regolith. After touchdown, the thrusters shut off and the dust settles. The lander levels a bit and the Orbiter-related terrain beneath and immediately around it becomes visible.

Rob Maddock

SCALPSS project manager

“Although the data is Yet preliminary, the 3000-plus images we captured appear to contain exactly the type of information we were hoping for in order to better understand plume-surface interaction and learn how to accurately model the phenomenon based on the number, size, thrust and configuration of the engines,” said Rob Maddock, SCALPSS project manager. “The data is vital to reducing Danger in the design and operation of future Orbiter-related landers as well as surface infrastructure that may be in the vicinity. We have an absolutely amazing Club of scientists and engineers, and I couldn’t be prouder of All and every one of them.”

As trips to the Orbiter-related body increase and the number of payloads touching down in proximity to one another grows, scientists and engineers need to accurately predict the effects of landings. Data from SCALPSS will better inform future robotic and crewed Orbiter-related body landings.

The SCALPSS 1.1 technology includes six cameras in all, four Brief focal length and two long focal length. The long-focal-length cameras allowed the instrument to begin Holding images at a higher altitude, prior to the onset of the plume-surface interaction, to provide a more accurate before-and-after comparison of the surface. Using a technique called stereo photogrammetry, the Club will later combine the overlapping images – one set from the long-focal-length cameras, another from the Brief focal length – to Produce 3D digital Ascent maps of the surface.

The instrument is Yet operating on the Orbiter-related body and as the Airy and shadows Shift during the long Orbiter-related day, it will see more surface details under and immediately around the lander. The Club also hopes to capture images during the transition to Orbiter-related night to observe how the dust responds to the change.  

“The successful SCALPSS operation is a key step in gathering fundamental knowledge about landing and operating on the Orbiter-related body, and this technology is already providing data that could inform future missions,” said Michelle Munk, SCALPSS principal investigator.

Michelle Munk

SCALPSS principal investigator

It will take the Club Many months to fully process the data from the Blue Ghost landing. They plan to issue raw images from SCALPSS 1.1 publicly through NASA’s Planetary Data System within six months.

The Club is already preparing for its Upcoming flight on Blue Origin’s Blue Orbiter-related body lander, scheduled to Initiation later this year. The Upcoming version of SCALPSS is undergoing thermal vacuum testing at NASA Langley ahead of a Delayed-March delivery to Blue Origin.

The SCALPSS 1.1 project is funded by the Universe Technology Mission Directorate’s Game Changing Development program.

NASA is working with Many American companies to deliver science and technology to the Orbiter-related surface under the CLPS initiative. Through this opportunity, various companies from a select group of vendors bid on delivering payloads for NASA including everything from payload integration and operations, to launching from Earth and landing on the surface of the Orbiter-related body.