A new immersive camera designed to explore lunar caves has been successfully tested in Italy, marking a key step toward a European Space Agency mission that could reshape plans for human settlement on the Moon. The DaedalusCam, an ultra-wide-angle imaging system, is being developed to descend into the Moon's lava tubes and create detailed three-dimensional maps of their interiors.
The camera is the product of a collaboration led by the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) and the Italian Space Agency (ASI), with Planetek Italia guiding the project. It consists of four individual cameras, called PanCam, that together provide a 360-degree view. According to Emanuele Simioni, an INAF researcher at the Padua observatory who oversees the camera's photogrammetric and 3D reconstruction aspects, the system is both predator and prey in its visual capabilities. It offers a panoramic field of view that extends beyond the horizon, a characteristic known as hyper-hemispheric, while also capturing high-resolution details.
Lava tubes are underground tunnels formed by ancient volcanic activity. Data from past missions, including Japan's Selene (Kaguya) and NASA's GRAIL, revealed that these are not merely surface pits but entrances to caves that can stretch for tens of kilometers beneath the lunar surface. The Daedalus mission, selected by ESA in 2019 through its SysNova program, aims to explore one such target: Marius Hills, a cave in the Oceanus Procellarum region near the Moon's equator. The entrance is approximately 50 meters in diameter and has a completely vertical access point.
These caves are of intense interest for astronautics for three main reasons. They could provide access to water ice, they maintain a stable thermal environment, and they offer complete shielding from meteorites, cosmic rays, and radiation. Simioni noted that this makes them a potentially favorable environment for human colonization, shifting the paradigm from living on the surface to living safely below it. However, beyond images of the entrances, little is known about what lies inside, which is why the Daedalus robot was conceived.
The mission architecture involves a spherical robot that will be lowered into the lava tube on a tether. The tether will supply power and transmit data during the descent, which is planned to reach 50 meters. After that, the robot will detach and continue exploring deeper into the cave. It will not return. Once detached, the cameras will no longer function because the interior is pitch black and no active illumination is planned. Data transmission will then rely on the robot's lidar and other sensors. Simioni explained that the camera's four wide fields of view ensure that every point in the cave will be visible from at least three of them, enabling a complete stereoscopic reconstruction.
The DaedalusCam prototype was tested last summer in a campaign on the Lessini Mountains in the Vicenza area of Italy, where it was flown aboard a drone. The mission's launch date remains uncertain. Early project phases mentioned 2033, but that has never been confirmed, and recent reports point to a timeframe after 2033 without a specific launch date.
The development of the camera drew inspiration from animal vision, as Simioni learned while following the writing of a book on the subject by his colleague Claudio Pernechele, who designed the four PanCam units. Predators have forward-facing eyes for stereoscopic vision and high-resolution detail, while prey have lateral vision for a wide field of view. The DaedalusCam combines both capabilities, offering the panoramic awareness of prey and the detailed focus of a predator. This dual capability is essential for navigating and mapping the unknown terrain of a lunar lava tube, where the robot must operate autonomously in darkness after the tether is released.
