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By NASA
NASA’s Electrodynamic Dust Shield (EDS) successfully demonstrated its ability to remove regolith, or lunar dust and dirt, from its various surfaces on the Moon during Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1, which concluded on March 16. Lunar dust is extremely abrasive and electrostatic, which means it clings to anything that carries a charge. It can damage everything from spacesuits and hardware to human lungs, making lunar dust one of the most challenging features of living and working on the lunar surface. The EDS technology uses electrodynamic forces to lift and remove the lunar dust from its surfaces. The first image showcases the glass and thermal radiator surfaces, coated in a layer of regolith. As you slide to the left, the photo reveals the results after EDS activation. Dust was removed from both surfaces, proving the technology’s effectiveness in mitigating dust accumulation.
This milestone marks a significant step toward sustaining long-term lunar and interplanetary operations by reducing dust-related hazards to a variety of surfaces for space applications ranging from thermal radiators, solar panels, and camera lenses to spacesuits, boots, and helmet visors. The EDS technology is paving the way for future dust mitigation solutions, supporting NASA’s Artemis campaign and beyond. NASA’s Electrodynamic Dust Shield was developed at Kennedy Space Center in Florida with funding from NASA’s Game Changing Development Program, managed by the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate.
Image Credit: NASA
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By NASA
Artemis II crew members and U.S. Navy personnel practice recovery procedures in the Pacific Ocean using a test version of NASA’s Orion spacecraft in February 2024. Credit: NASA NASA and the Department of Defense will host a media event on the recovery operations that will bring the Artemis II astronauts and the agency’s Orion spacecraft home at the conclusion of next year’s mission around the Moon. The in-person event will take place at 3 p.m. PDT on Monday, March 31, at Naval Base San Diego in California.
A team of NASA and Department of Defense personnel are at sea in the Pacific Ocean where splashdown will take place. The team currently is practicing the procedures it will use to recover the astronauts after their more than 600,000 mile journey from Earth and back on the first crewed mission under the Artemis campaign. A test version of Orion and other hardware also will be on-hand for media representatives to view.
Interested media must RSVP no later than 4 p.m. PDT Friday, March 28, to Naval Base San Diego Public Affairs at nbsd.pao@us.navy.mil or 619-556-7359. The start time of the event may change based on the conclusion of testing activities.
Participants include:
Liliana Villarreal, NASA’s Artemis II landing and recovery director, Exploration Ground Systems Program, NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida Capt. Andrew “Andy” Koy, commanding officer of USS Somerset (LPD 25), U.S. Navy Lt. Col. David Mahan, commander, U.S. Air Force’s 1st Air Force, Detachment 3, Patrick Space Force Base, Florida Several astronauts participating in the testing will be available for interviews.
Artemis II will be the first test flight of the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket, Orion spacecraft, and supporting ground system with crew aboard. NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen will venture around the Moon and back. The mission is another step toward missions on the lunar surface and helping the agency prepare for future astronaut missions to Mars.
Learn more about Artemis II at:
https://www.nasa.gov/mission/artemis-ii/
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Jim Wilson
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1100
jim.wilson@nasa.gov
Madison Tuttle/Allison Tankersley
Kennedy Space Center, Florida
321-298-5968/321-867-2468
madison.e.tuttle@nasa.gov / allison.p.tankersley@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Mar 25, 2025 LocationNASA Headquarters Related Terms
Artemis 2 Kennedy Space Center NASA Headquarters View the full article
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By NASA
1 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
NASA’s LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) imaged Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 lunar lander on the Moon’s surface the afternoon of March 2, not quite 10 hours after the spacecraft landed.
Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 lunar lander, which appears in this image from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter as a bright pixel casting a shadow in the middle of the white box, reached the surface of the Moon on March 2 at 3:34 a.m. EST.NASA/Goddard/Arizona State University The delivery is part of NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative and Artemis campaign. This is the first CLPS delivery for Firefly, and their first Moon landing.
LRO is managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. Launched on June 18, 2009, LRO has collected a treasure trove of data with its seven powerful instruments, making an invaluable contribution to our knowledge about the Moon. NASA is returning to the Moon with commercial and international partners to expand human presence in space and bring back new knowledge and opportunities.
More on this story from Arizona State University’s LRO Camera website
Media Contact:
Nancy N. Jones
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
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Last Updated Mar 25, 2025 Related Terms
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) View the full article
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By NASA
1 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
NASA’s LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) imaged Intuitive Machines’ IM-2 on the Moon’s surface on March 7, just under 24 hours after the spacecraft landed.
Later that day Intuitive Machines called an early end of mission for IM-2, which carried NASA technology demonstrations as part of the agency’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative and Artemis campaign.
The Intuitive Machines IM-2 Athena lander, indicated here with a white arrow, reached the surface of the Moon on March 6, 2025, near the center of Mons Mouton. NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) imaged the site at 12:54 p.m. EST on March 7.NASA/Goddard/Arizona State University The IM-2 mission lander is located closer to the Moon’s South Pole than any previous lunar lander.
LRO is managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. Launched on June 18, 2009, LRO has collected a treasure trove of data with its seven powerful instruments, making an invaluable contribution to our knowledge about the Moon. NASA is returning to the Moon with commercial and international partners to expand human presence in space and bring back new knowledge and opportunities.
More on this story from Arizona State University’s LRO Camera website
Media Contact:
Nancy N. Jones
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
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Last Updated Mar 25, 2025 Related Terms
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) View the full article
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By NASA
5 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Researcher Ann Raiho measures sunlight interacting with yellow Coreopsis gigantea flowers during field work in the Jack and Laura Dangermond Preserve in California’s Santa Barbara County in 2022.NASA/Yoseline Angel For many plant species, flowering is biologically synced with the seasons. Scientists are clocking blooms to understand our ever-changing planet.
NASA research is revealing there’s more to flowers than meets the human eye. A recent analysis of wildflowers in California shows how aircraft- and space-based instruments can use color to track seasonal flower cycles. The results suggest a potential new tool for farmers and natural-resource managers who rely on flowering plants.
In their study, the scientists surveyed thousands of acres of nature preserve using a technology built by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. The instrument — an imaging spectrometer — mapped the landscape in hundreds of wavelengths of light, capturing flowers as they blossomed and aged over the course of months.
It was the first time the instrument had been deployed to track vegetation steadily through the growing season, making this a “first-of-a-kind study,” said David Schimel, a research scientist at JPL.
In this illustration, an imaging spectrometer aboard a research plane measures sunlight reflecting off California coastal scrub. In the data cube below, the top panel shows the true-color view of the area. Lower panels depict the spectral fingerprint for every point in the image, capturing the visible range of light (blue, green, and red wavelengths) to the near-infrared (NIR) and beyond. Spatial resolution is around 16 feet (5 meters).NASA For many plant species from crops to cacti, flowering is timed to seasonal swings in temperature, daylight, and precipitation. Scientists are taking a closer look at the relationship between plant life and seasons — known as vegetation phenology — to understand how rising temperatures and changing rainfall patterns may be impacting ecosystems.
Typically, wildflower surveys rely on boots-on-the-ground observations and tools such as time-lapse photography. But these approaches cannot capture broader changes that may be happening in different ecosystems around the globe, said lead author Yoseline Angel, a scientist at the University of Maryland-College Park and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
“One challenge is that compared to leaves or other parts of a plant, flowers can be pretty ephemeral,” she said. “They may last only a few weeks.”
To track blooms on a large scale, Angel and other NASA scientists are looking to one of the signature qualities of flowers: color.
NASA’s AVIRIS sensors have been used to study wildfires, World Trade Center wreckage, and critical minerals, among numerous airborne missions over the years. AVIRIS-3 is seen here on a field campaign in Panama, where it helped analyze vegetation in many wavelengths of light not visible to human eyes.NASA/Shawn Serbin Mapping Native Shrubs
Flower pigments fall into three major groups: carotenoids and betalains (associated with yellow, orange, and red colors), and anthocyanins (responsible for many deep reds, violets, and blues). The different chemical structures of the pigments reflect and absorb light in unique patterns.
Spectrometers allow scientists to analyze the patterns and catalog plant species by their chemical “fingerprint.” As all molecules reflect and absorb a unique pattern of light, spectrometers can identify a wide range of biological substances, minerals, and gases.
Handheld devices are used to analyze samples in the field or lab. To survey moons and planets, including Earth, NASA has developed increasingly powerful imaging spectrometers over the past 45 years.
One such instrument is called AVIRIS-NG (short for Airborne Visible/InfraRed Imaging Spectrometer-Next Generation), which was built by JPL to fly on aircraft. In 2022 it was used in a large ecology field campaign to survey vegetation in the Jack and Laura Dangermond Preserve and the Sedgwick Reserve, both in Santa Barbara County. Among the plants observed were two native shrub species — Coreopsis gigantea and Artemisia californica — from February to June.
The scientists developed a method to tease out the spectral fingerprint of the flowers from other landscape features that crowded their image pixels. In fact, they were able to capture 97% of the subtle spectral differences among flowers, leaves, and background cover (soil and shadows) and identify different flowering stages with 80% certainty.
Predicting Superblooms
The results open the door to more air- and space-based studies of flowering plants, which represent about 90% of all plant species on land. One of the ultimate goals, Angel said, would be to support farmers and natural resource managers who depend on these species along with insects and other pollinators in their midst. Fruit, nuts, many medicines, and cotton are a few of the commodities produced from flowering plants.
Angel is working with new data collected by AVIRIS’ sister spectrometer that orbits on the International Space Station. Called EMIT (Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation), it was designed to map minerals around Earth’s arid regions. Combining its data with other environmental observations could help scientists study superblooms, a phenomenon where vast patches of desert flowers bloom after heavy rains.
One of the delights of researching flowers, Angel said, is the enthusiasm from citizen scientists. “I have social media alerts on my phone,” she added, noting one way she stays on top of wildflower activity around the world.
The wildflower study was supported as part of the Surface Biology and Geology High-Frequency Time Series (SHIFT) campaign. An airborne and field research effort, SHIFT was jointly led by the Nature Conservancy, the University of California, Santa Barbara, and JPL. Caltech, in Pasadena, manages JPL for NASA.
The AVIRIS instrument was originally developed through funding from NASA’s Earth Science Technology Office.
News Media Contacts
Andrew Wang / Jane J. Lee
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
626-379-6874 / 818-354-0307
andrew.wang@jpl.nasa.gov / jane.j.lee@jpl.nasa.gov
Written by Sally Younger
2025-041
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Last Updated Mar 24, 2025 Related Terms
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