Shadow of FireFly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost 1 Lander on the Moon on March 2, 2025. Credit: FireFly Aerospace
NASA’s new Electrodynamic Dust Shield (EDS) just passed a major test on the Moon, marking a big win for future lunar missions. Carried aboard Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost 1—which made the first-ever successful commercial lunar touchdown on March 2—the EDS proved it can clear abrasive lunar dust (regolith) from surfaces using electric fields. This breakthrough supports NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to establish lunar bases within the next decade. Developed at Kennedy Space Center and first tested in space in 2019, the EDS could help protect everything from solar panels to spacesuits, making long-term lunar exploration safer and more sustainable.
In March 2015, students from ʻIolani High School field tested a mock spacecraft they built and outfitted with NASA’s EDS at a planetary analog site on Hawaiʻi Island.
Hawaiʻi’s own high school students have been part of this journey too. Back in 2014, students from Kealakehe High School and ʻIolani High School helped develop and test EDS technology during the Moon RIDERS lunar flight experiment—a joint STEM initiative between PISCES and NASA. The project tasked students with building and testing a mock spacecraft equipped with a NASA EDS unit at a planetary analog site on Hawaiʻi Island, followed by additional trials at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California.