Artemis Moon camera design debriefing

Jeremy Myers, NASA’s lead for the Handheld Universal Lunar Camera (HULC), gives an overview of the design to astronauts during the PANGAEA training programme.

Jeremy worked with ESA in the lunar-like landscapes of Lanzarote, Spain, to put the new camera through its paces.

When astronauts return to the Moon, they will take more pictures of the lunar surface than any humans before. To develop the best camera for the job, European astronauts and scientists are lending a helping hand to NASA’s Artemis imagery team.

The new lunar camera is built from professional off-the-shelf cameras with great sensitivity to light and state-of-the-art lenses. To prepare it for space, the NASA team made several modifications, including adding a blanket for dust and thermal protection – temperatures range from minus 200 to 120 degrees Celsius on the Moon – as well as a new set of ergonomic buttons for astronauts wearing gloves in bulky spacesuits.