Moon dust in the spotlight

Moon dust in the spotlight in the LUNA hall
Moon dust in the spotlight
Clouds of fine dust shimmer in the beam of a spotlight. But this is no ordinary dust – it’s deceptively similar to lunar regolith, or Moon dust. This photo was taken during one of the first experiments in the LUNA hall, which DLR and the European Space Agency (ESA) opened in Cologne in September 2024. Apart from the temperature and vacuum, conditions here closely resemble those on the lunar surface, allowing astronauts and robots to prepare for future missions to the
Moon. The DLR Institute of Communications and Navigation has used LUNA to investigate how payload boxes, sensors, rovers and exploration crews can be connected together to form a network – exchanging signals that could be used for both communication and navigation. The swarm navigation System developed by the institute can assist in exploring the surface of the Moon or Mars, and can also help improve orientation in places on Earth, such as lava caves, where
satellite navigation is unavailable.