Firefly Blue Ghost Mission 1: SCALPSS 1.1 Payload and Mission Overview

The Stereo Cameras for Lunar Plume-Surface Studies (SCALPSS) 1.1 payload collected first-of-its-kind calibrated stereo imagery during the transit, descent, landing, and 14-day surface mission of the Firefly Aerospace Blue Ghost Mission 1 (BGM1) lander in early 2025. The payload, which was manifested on BGM1 in early 2021 and delivered to the provider in late 2022, included commercial off-the-shelf and “build-to-print” hardware with previous flight heritage. This included six cameras, which utilized three types of lenses optimized for both pre- and post-landing measurements with the stereo photogrammetry technique. The payload performed several image captures during lunar transit, including during a lunar orbit insertion burn and while in low-lunar orbit. During descent and landing on March 2nd, the payload acquired and transferred to the lander approximately 1800 images, which captured several key phenomena of interest to the plume-surface interaction topic. During the subsequent 14-day surface mission, several thousand additional images were collected and transferred to ground; these images were post-processed to produce high dynamic range images of the post-landing terrain as the lunar day progressed. The stereo photogrammetry technique is applied to the images to produce three-dimensional shape measurements of the lunar terrain, and is expected to provide an assessment of plume-induced erosion from the powered landing, which will inform modeling and predictive efforts for future landings at the Moon, Mars, and elsewhere.