Spacecraft landing on dusty surfaces like of the moon and Mars tend to kick up powdery regolith that blurs the lenses of navigation cameras, reducing visibility and making the already-difficult job of landing safely even more arduous. A new instrument that accurately catalogs the abundance of dust and debris in its vicinity may thus be deemed essential for spacecraft landings on the moon and Mars.
On the moon, stirred-up dust is particularly dangerous for crewed spacecraft landings. A 2005 NASA report on the effects of dust during the Apollo missions notes "one of the surprises of the Apollo experience was how troublesome the lunar dust turned out to be. It obscured their vision on landing, clogged mechanisms, braded the Extravehicular Mobility Suits (EMS), [...] irritated their eyes and lungs, and generally coated everything with surprising tenacity."
