When the Blue Ghost Lander reached the lunar surface on 2 March, the firefly aerospace became the first commercial company to fully successful in the soft moon landing in the first attempt.
In a week, and at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia, a team has just released the first footage of a lunar lander’s powerful engine plum, interacting with the surface of the moon, which has been captured as blue ghost touch.
Coming for a landing 🚀🌕
During the Moon Landing of the last week, our scalps cameras captured the first-time video while interacting with the lunar lunar engine plums.
Read more: pic.twitter.com/v5st35x6ao
– NASA Langley Research Center (@nasa_langley) March 13, 2025
Lunar-Plum Surface Studies (SCALPSS) was recorded by the Stereo cameras of the notable video lander.
The sequence starts about 91 feet (28 meters) above the lunar surface, with the lunar dust starts kicking up to about 49 feet (15 meters). Scalps 1.1 technology includes six cameras, four with a short focal length and two with long focal lengths. Long-term focal-length cameras started recording at high altitude, before the dust response, scientists to be useful before data.
Michelle Munk, the leading investigator of Scalps, described the scalps as an important step in “landing and gathering fundamental knowledge about operations on the moon, saying” Technology “is already providing data that can inform future missions.”
This task is particularly important because NASA and its commercial partner move towards increasing the frequency of lunar landing as part of the Artemis program.
There are several objectives of the Blue Ghost Mission, which will end on Sunday, including studying Lunar resolith, testing new technologies for future missions, and conducting various scientific experiments, including observation of the Earth’s magnetic field from the moon. The firefly team also hopes that it will inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers.
Want to watch another video of blue ghost last week? Then look at this footage captured by a separate camera on the lander.
