Volunteers Help NASA Astronauts Record Lunar Flashes

As NASA’s Artemis II astronauts zipped around the Moon in early April, they observed flashes of light caused by meteoroids hitting the lunar surface. At the same time, volunteers for the NASA-funded Impact Flash project scanned the Moon with their own telescopes and sent their videos to scientists to share what they saw from Earth.

“We were incredibly grateful for the videos people submitted,” said Impact Flash project lead Ben Fernando, a planetary scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The locations and brightness of flashes observed by different instruments at different locations together can help constrain the nature and origin of the impactors, as well as the craters they form. 

The Artemis II astronauts have splashed back down to Earth, so their observations of the Moon from space have come to a halt for now, but the Impact Flash team is just getting started. They need your continued help scanning the Moon to watch for flashes. If you have access to a telescope four inches in diameter or greater with video capabilities, your observations can make a difference. The more observations you submit, the better the team will be able to constrain the present-day impact rate on the Moon and how it changes over time. Instructions for making and uploading your observations can be found on the Impact Flash website.

In the future, the project team also plans to use your impact flash observations to study tremors on the Moon, similar to earthquakes. They’re called ‘moonquakes’ and they help us figure out what lies beneath the Moon’s surface.

“We are planning to send seismometers to the Moon to measure how the ground shakes,” said Fernando. “Your measurements of impact flashes will help us work out the sources of moonquakes we detect. This will help us work out what the Moon’s interior looks like.”

To collect data during the Artemis II mission, the Impact Flash investigators teamed up with several other groups of amateur astronomers, including the NASA-funded Kilo-nova Catchers, Exoplanet Watch, UNITE (Unistellar Network Investigating TESS Exoplanets), and Night Sky Network teams, as well as the Lunar Impact Flashes project, based at the National Research Council of Italy (IMATI-CNR). Thank you to all those who submitted data.

Grab your telescope and get started with Impact Flash: https://www.geodes.umd.edu/impactflash

The Impact Flash team acknowledges the work done by Institute for Applied Mathematics and Information Technologies-Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (IMATI-CNR)/Italy (E. M. Alessi, M. T. Artesi) to set up the web page and A. Cook (Aberystwyth Univ., UK) and D. Koschny (Technical University of Munich, DE) for data curation. The IMATI-CNR team receives funding from the Italian Space Agency, corresponding to ESA’s (European Space Agency) Lunar Meteoroid Impacts Observer mission.

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Impact Flash!

You and your telescope can join a global network of amateur astronomers documenting meteors hitting the moon.

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I Am Artemis: Peter Rossoni

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I Am Artemis: Peter Rossoni

Listen to this audio excerpt from Peter Rossoni, Orion Artemis II Optical Communications System flight manager:

As a child, Peter Rossoni watched the Apollo missions launch with his family. In April 2026, he became a part of NASA’s Artemis II mission, helping enable communications as astronauts journeyed around the Moon.

Rossoni’s path to NASA began as he followed his parents’ footsteps into science. That foundation eventually led him to laser communications and NASA’s Artemis II test flight.

Today, Rossoni is the flight manager for the Orion Artemis II Optical Communication System at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Throughout Artemis II, he oversaw the first use of laser communications on a crewed deep space mission.

The optical terminal flew aboard the Orion spacecraft alongside NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, and Christina Koch, and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen. Through the system, laser communications links transmitted video, photos, engineering, and science data, flight procedures, and crew communications to Earth from the lunar vicinity. In total, the terminal transferred over 450 gigabytes of data to Earth. That’s roughly equivalent to 100 high-definition movies.

During the approximately 10-day mission, Rossoni joined the mission control team to ensure smooth data flow from the laser communications terminal on Orion to the Mission Control Center at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

“Communications is an important pillar of exploration. We’re venturing into deep space for longer periods of time, and we need that vital link back to the home base. Laser communications were proven to work in previous experiments, so the demonstration phase is over. Artemis II showed us what it can do operationally.”

Laser communications were proven to work in previous experiments, so the demonstration phase is over. Artemis II showed us what it can do operationally.

Peter Rossoni

Flight Manager for the Orion Artemis II Optical Communications System

Laser communications systems use invisible infrared light to pack more data into a single transmission. With downlink speeds of up to 260 megabits per second, the optical communications system was capable of transmitting a full-length 4K movie from the Moon to Earth in about a minute.

“Beyond supporting a crewed mission around the Moon, I’m excited to work with an amazing team of talented engineers and visionaries who understand that high-performance communications and networking is a key element of exploration infrastructure.”

Merging existing infrastructure with the next-generation system was no easy feat. While the system’s laser communications path operated in parallel to traditional radio communications, both tied into the same networks at the Mission Control Center and aboard Orion. The team developed solutions that would allow the systems to work together at the higher rates that laser communications can provide.

To prepare for liftoff, Rossoni and the optical flight and ground teams supported extensive testing activities, including practice runs simulating team and facility operations, the operational readiness reviews confirming the system’s terminal and ground segment, and assuring the teams work smoothly together for the mission. The result was a communications system with up to 100 times greater capacity, enhancing the connection between astronauts and their support teams, while freeing the radio communications systems for sensitive and critical data streams.

“A well-respected scientist at Goddard once said, ‘communications is the secret sauce behind all NASA missions. For Artemis II in particular, with the astronauts’ mission and safety at stake, it was critical to have robust communications to both enhance successful exploration and address any eventualities in the demanding environment of deep space. I had a deep sense of fulfillment when the Orion Artemis II optical communications system started working, and it kept growing as the mission progressed, with more and more objectives achieved.”

I had a deep sense of fulfillment when the Orion Artemis II optical communications system started working, and it kept growing as the mission progressed, with more and more objectives achieved.

Peter Rossoni

Flight Manager for the Orion Artemis II Optical Communications System

About the Author

Kendall Murphy

Technical Writer

Kendall Murphy is a technical writer for the Space Communications and Navigation program office. She specializes in internal and external engagement, educating readers about space communications and navigation technology.

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Kendall Murphy