NASA proves its electric moon dust shield works on the lunar surface

New shielding technology from NASA that protects against damaging lunar dust just passed a trial run on the moon's surface, marking an important milestone in the agency's lunar aspirations.

The Electrodynamic Dust Shield (EDS) flew aboard Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost, the first privately funded lunar lander to make a fully successful touchdown on the moon.

After Blue Ghost's historic landing on March 2, the EDS demonstrated the ability to remove lunar dust and dirt, known as regolith, from surfaces using electrodynamic forces. The successful test concluded on March 16.

NASA has big plans for the moon via its Artemis program, which aims to set up one or more lunar bases in the next decade or so. But regolith presents a significant issue for lunar hardware, spacesuits and human lungs, because the dust is so abrasive. So the shield technology passing this recent test is good news, the agency said.

Related: Here's what NASA sent to the moon on Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lunar lander

"This milestone marks a significant step toward sustaining long-term lunar and interplanetary operations by reducing dust-related hazards to a variety of surfaces for space applications ranging from thermal radiators, solar panels and camera lenses to spacesuits, boots and helmet visors," NASA wrote in a statement.

The EDS was originally derived from the Electrostatic Curtain concept, which F.B. Tatum and NASA collaborators dreamed up back in 1967.

The EDS uses electrodes and electric fields to remove dust from the surface of objects. It was developed at Kennedy Space Center in Florida using funding from NASA's Game Changing Development Program.

The shielding technology was tested in vacuum chambers, where it was used to remove lunar dust samples brought home by NASA's Apollo missions. The first time EDS was tested in space was on the International Space Station, during the Materials International Space Station Experiment (MISSE)-11 mission in 2019.

"The EDS technology is paving the way for future dust mitigation solutions, supporting NASA's Artemis campaign and beyond," NASA officials said in the release.