Space

Planned moon landings could pelt orbiting spacecraft with dusty debris

The large landing vehicles planned for NASA’s upcoming moon missions could throw up large amounts of dust from the lunar surface, posing a possible danger to orbiters

By Jonathan O’Callaghan

1 June 2023

Artist’s depiction of the Blue Origin’s Blue Moon lander, which NASA has selected for its Artemis V mission
Blue Origin

Planned moon missions with large landers may stir up clouds of dust from the lunar surface, which could be dangerous for orbiters or even space stations.

Later this decade, NASA hopes to return humans to the surface of the moon with its Artemis programme. Two companies in the US, SpaceX and Blue Origin, have been contracted to develop landers that could take humans to the lunar surface by 2025 at the earliest.

However, Philip Metzger at the University of…