Firefly Blue Ghost Mission 1: SCALPSS 1.1 Long Focal Length Camera Descent Imaging

During the descent of the Firefly Aerospace Blue Ghost lander toward the surface of the Moon, two cameras with long focal length (50 mm) lenses captured images, some in stereo, and evaluate the impact of the lander's reaction control system thrusters with the lunar surface, a phenomenon referred to as plume-surface interaction. These two cameras were a part of the larger six-camera Stereo Cameras for Lunar Plume-Surface Studies (SCALPSS) payload. Using matching features in subsequent images during the landing, ground track images were stitched together of the entire landing region. These stitched images were compared with images captured by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera to discuss the impact that higher fidelity imaging has on the mission planning, hazard avoidance, and landing process. When both cameras captured images of the same region of the lunar surface, digital elevation maps (DEMs) could be computed. A DEM was computed for a single image (frame 245) during the descent with a large amount of stereo overlap between the images, providing a 3D map of the surface during landing. Particle streaks could also be identified in these images and plotted in 3D above the crater, and using the known image acquisition exposure time, the particle velocities were computed.