NASA Cameras on Blue Ghost Capture First-of-its-Kind Moon Landing Footage - NASA
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The Stereo Cameras for Lunar-Plume Surface Studies (SCALPSS) 1.1 instrument took the images during the descent and successful soft landing of Firefly

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

  • Beetschnapps@lemmy.world
    1·
    2 days ago

    what about leaving the bottom half of the lander as a launch pad? Isn’t that what Apollo did? The descent stage doubled as a launch pad. Grandpa engineered the separators for that part…

    • lemming@sh.itjust.works
      1·
      2 days ago

      Well, the currently approved lander is a modified starship simply standing on some legs. Your solution would work, but it isn’t what will happen during Artemis. Not with the money available (other options were much more expensive), and even if there was more money, almost certainly not under current administration.