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A team at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, has captured first-of-its-kind imagery of a lunar lander’s engine plumes interacting with the Moon’s surface, a key piece of data as trips to the Moon increase in the coming years under the agency’s Artemis campaign.

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

Includes a YouTube video

Watch Firefly land on the Moon! After identifying surface hazards and selecting a safe landing site, Blue Ghost landed directly over the target in Mare Crisium.

Our Ghost Riders have since downlinked our landing footage for the world to see -- a historic moment on March 2 we'll never forget. We have Moon dust on our boots!

Rise and shine!

Firefly’s Blue Ghost lander captured its first sunrise on the Moon, marking the beginning of the lunar day and the start of surface operations in its new home. Our Ghost Riders have already begun operating many of the 10 NASA payloads aboard the lander and will continue operations over the next two weeks and into the lunar night.

Credits: Firefly Aerospace

Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/fireflyspace/54362872324/in/dateposted/

Astronomy Picture of the Day

There's a new lander on the Moon. Yesterday Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost executed the first-ever successful commercial lunar landing. During its planned 60-day mission, Blue Ghost will deploy several NASA-commissioned scientific instruments, including PlanetVac which captures lunar dust after creating a small whirlwind of gas. Blue Ghost will also host the telescope LEXI that captures X-ray images of the Earth's magnetosphere. LEXI data should enable a better understanding of how Earth's magnetic field protects the Earth from the Sun's wind and flares. Pictured, the shadow of the Blue Ghost lander is visible on the cratered lunar surface, while the glowing orb of the planet Earth hovers just over the horizon. Goals for future robotic Blue Ghost landers include supporting lunar astronauts in NASA's Artemis program, with Artemis III currently scheduled to land humans back on the Moon in 2027.

Full resolution image link

Image Credits: Firefly Aerospace.