The first images of a lunar lander engine thruster stirring up moon dust were captured by a team at NASA‘s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, during the successful Firefly Aerospace Blue Ghost descent on March 2 of this year.
Future analysis of the images will provide valuable data about how the thrusters interact with the dust, soils, and rocks, known as regolith, on the Moon’s surface. In the wake of Intuitive Machines‘ failed IM-2 Athena landing on March 6, the data could prove crucial to NASA‘s Artemis project plans for long-term lunar habitation.
Capturing a Hot Landing
NASA used the Lunar-Plume Surface Studies (SCALPSS) 1.1 instrument’s stereo camera to capture a first-person view of Blue Ghost’s touchdown in the Mare Crisium region. Although low resolution and heavily compressed, researchers produced a video by combining images from all four of SCALPSS 1.1’s short-focal-length cameras. With an eight-frame-per-second shutter speed, the cameras began rolling about 91 feet above the surface, judged by approximate altitude data.
Around 49 feet above the surface, reaction control thruster plumes began impacting the lunar surface. The interaction grew increasingly intense and complex, swirling any debris in its path. Calm finally settled when the thrusters disengaged after touchdown, allowing the lander to settle into the lunar surface, which was clearly visible in the video.
“Although the data is still 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.
Making Lunar Landings Routine Activity
“The data is vital to reducing risk in the design and operation of future lunar landers as well as surface infrastructure that may be in the vicinity. We have an absolutely amazing team of scientists and engineers, and I couldn’t be prouder of each and every one of them,” Maddock said.
With NASA’s long-term plans for the Artemis mission, human lunar activity is poised to ramp up in coming years. As the currently desolate surface grows more crowded, a precise understanding of thruster and surface dynamics will become essential. NASA researchers are prioritizing landing effects as the window between touchdowns shrinks, with SCALPSS as their formal effort to penetrate and understand this murky area.
While only four cameras were used to produce this latest video, SCALPSS 1.1 contains six in total, integrated around the Blue Ghost lander’s base. The additional two are long-focal cameras to establish a baseline by recording the surface before a thruster interaction. With before-and-after images in hand, researchers will then combine the two using stereo photogrammetry to create digital 3D elevation maps.
A Continuing Mission
Now that the touchdown is complete, relative calm may have set on that patch of lunar surface, but SCALPSS 1.1’s mission continues. The cameras are still recording in search of greater details about the lunar regolith as light and shadow traverse the surface, revealing and obscuring various aspects. With the trusters off, the earthbound NASA team is now investigating how lunar dust responds to the change from day to night.
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“The successful SCALPSS operation is a key step in gathering fundamental knowledge about landing and operating on the Moon, and this technology is already providing data that could inform future missions,” said Michelle Munk, SCALPSS principal investigator.
The Langley team projects months of data processing ahead to fully utilize every piece of data collected during the Blue Ghost landing. NASA will inform the public of their work by releasing the raw images within the next six months through their Planetary Data System. Future SCALPSS technology is in testing at Langley for delivery to Blue Origin later this month. Blue Origin will be integrating the revised touchdown monitoring apparatus into their Blue Moon lander, delayed to later this year from an initial 2024 launch estimate.
Ryan Whalen covers science and technology for The Debrief. He holds an MA in History and a Master of Library and Information Science with a certificate in Data Science. He can be contacted atryan@thedebrief.org, and follow him on Twitter@mdntwvlf.