An imagery expert records a simulated moonwalk with two volunteers performing collection and analysis of Moon-like samples.

ESA and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) led this rehearsal in a realistic Moon setting at the LUNA facility in Cologne, Germany. Space agencies will use the images as reference files for future lunar surface operations.

The exercise was not about producing fake footage. Instead, teams worked on capturing realistic test clips ranging from static images to highly dynamic ones, including astronauts leaving a landing module and even taking a lunar selfie using the reflection on their helmet visor.

One of the “moonwalkers” is ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer; the other is Aidan Cowley, the Spaceship and Facilities lead from the European Astronaut Centre.

Fine dust designed to mimic the lunar surface is everywhere. Moon dust presents one of the biggest challenges for filming. Every step on the Moon-field brings up dust particles, which float in the air and distort the images.

There were also walls, cables and curtains that needed to be avoided in the scenes – the test clips had to be as lunar-like as possible. The team spent time testing camera angles, movements and lighting.

The LUNA facility has several sun simulators to replicate the lighting of the Sun on the Moon, including the effects of shadows cast from the rocks and inside craters.

Half a century after humankind stepped onto the lunar surface for the first time, space communications experts are using this setting to prepare the best coverage possible for the return to the Moon.

The first images of humans walking on the Moon were in black and white because there was not enough bandwidth available from the Apollo 11 Lunar Module to transmit colour.

In contrast to the iconic grainy footage of the 1960s, the transmission of the next human landing on the Moon will be in colour, digital and at up to 60 frames per second.

Sending video from the Moon isn’t simple. The main constraints on lunar transmissions are size and power consumption.

Experts from 28 nations take part in the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS) to discuss different types of encoding and transmission to ensure video quality and data handling from space. This multinational team addresses the obstacles to receiving high-quality images through the limited bandwidth available from the Moon.

More details about Moon broadcasting can be found in the article “How to capture Moon landing videos.”