During training ahead of launch, the astronauts did an experiment involving a sandbox. By shining light on the sand at different angles, they identified texture, color and topography — something that can hint at how the lunar surface has evolved.
“We can’t move the sun in this mission, but we can move Integrity,” said Dr. Kelsey Young, lead for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. “By looking at the same targets more than once throughout their flyby, they’ll be able to make observations about the same targets in different illumination conditions that would take some spacecraft days, months, weeks, years to build up.”
Apart from simulations, the crew prepared for the historic lunar flyby in a multitude of ways in the months ahead of launch.
They attended classes with the scientists, blazed through flashcards to understand lunar geography, handled rocks to get a better grasp of geology and even trained like field scientists in the Icelandic highlands — a great lunar analog on Earth.
