LRO measures the Falcon 9 Moon crater while ISS spacewalkers remove a failed antenna without installing the spare
LRO imaged the roughly 18-metre lunar crater a Falcon 9 upper stage opened on 5 August after launching Blue Ghost 1 in January 2025. Menon and Adenot removed a failed Space-to-Ground antenna; delays left the spare uninstalled.
Science··Morning
A Falcon 9 upper stage opened a crater about 18 metres wide on 5 August
NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter imaged the crater formed on 5 August 2026 when the Falcon 9 upper stage that carried Firefly's Blue Ghost 1 mission in January 2025 struck the Moon. LRO narrow-angle camera images taken on 11 and 12 August show a crater about 18 metre wide, and its shadow puts the crater at 3 metre depth. Getting the picture required tilting the spacecraft as it travelled about 1.6 kilometre per second roughly 97 kilometre above the surface; NASA says a shutter 10 seconds early or late would have left the target 16 kilometre off centre. Its Center for Near Earth Object Studies had narrowed the predicted impact point to about 1 kilometre across. The darker streaks around the crater are surface dust and rock long altered by solar wind, galactic cosmic rays and micrometeorite impacts, while the brighter rays are fresher material thrown up from deeper down.[1]
Menon and Adenot removed the failed antenna in 6 hours and 23 minutes
NASA's Anil Menon and ESA's Sophie Adenot spent 6 hours and 23 minutes outside the International Space Station on 18 August, removing a Space-to-Ground antenna on the Z-1 truss that had been unable to track NASA's data relay satellites since November. Delays disconnecting its electrical connections and locking its gimbal bolts left no time to install the replacement. Flight controllers had the crew tether the failed antenna to the truss and deferred the installation. It was the 282 numbered spacewalk in support of station assembly and maintenance, Menon's second and Adenot's first; she became the first French woman and the fifth French citizen to walk in space. Mission managers may add the spare installation to a spacewalk already planned for 25 August or leave it to a later outing.[2]
A second antenna has carried the Houston link since the failure
A second antenna has carried the station's high-speed link to Mission Control Houston since the failure; the removed unit was part of the Space-to-Ground line on the Z-1 truss. Menon and Adenot's outing aimed to install spare hardware after the tracking loss that began in November, but disconnecting electrical connections and locking gimbal bolts delayed that step. Flight controllers tethered the failed antenna to the truss and deferred installation. Mission managers are weighing whether to add the job to a spacewalk already planned for 25 August or postpone it to a later outing. Logged as the 282 numbered station maintenance spacewalk, it was Menon's second and Adenot's first outing in space.[2]
