How to use a lunar camera in the dark

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. Capturing images will be key for documenting scientific discoveries during future Moon missions. One objective during PANGAEA was to select the most suitable lenses.

Thomas Pesquet, NASA astronaut candidate Jessica Wittner and Takuya Onishi from the Japanese space agency used the camera in broad daylight, but also in the darkness of volcanic caves to simulate extreme conditions for lunar photography.

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.