NASA’s Lunar Vacuum Operates on the Moon

A technology demonstration instrument aboard Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 has operated on the Moon as part of the agency’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative. Lunar PlanetVac, or LPV, is designed to efficiently collect and transfer lunar soil from the lunar surface to other science instruments or sample return containers without reliance on gravity. In this video, the lunar “vacuum cleaner” can be seen spreading lunar soil and rocks flying across the lunar surface as a burst of air from the pneumatic, compressed gas-powered sample acquisition and delivery system initiates. Since landing on the Moon on March 2, LPV has completed its sample collection operations. LPV, along with the 10 other NASA science and technology instruments aboard the lander will operate on the Moon, near a volcanic featured called Mons Latreille within Mare Crisium, for 14 Earth days, or roughly one lunar day. Honeybee Robotics, a Blue Origin company of Altadena, California, developed LPV. The Planetary Missions Program Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the development for seven of the 10 CLPS payloads aboard Firefly’s Blue Ghost lunar l