Enlarge / In this illustration, SpaceX’s Starship vehicle is seen landing on the Moon. (credit: NASA) As part of its Artemis program to return humans to the Moon this decade, NASA has a minimum requirement that its “human landing system” must be able to deliver 865 kg to the lunar surface. This is based on […]
Enlarge / This illustration shows a concept for a commercial lunar lander from Astrobotic Technology. (credit: NASA) For more than three years, NASA has been intensely focused on the Artemis Moon program. This high-profile international effort, spearheaded by the US space agency at a cost of nearly $7. 5 billion per year, seeks to return […]
Enlarge (credit: NASA/CXO/University College London/W. Dunn et al; Optical: W. M. Keck Observatory ) Late in 2021, the astronomy community released its decadal survey , a roadmap of scientific priorities for the next 10 years, which describes the hardware we’d need to build in order to achieve them. That survey was focused on distant objects […]
Enlarge / The Moon is safe from Falcon 9 rockets. (credit: NASA) About three weeks ago Ars Technica first reported that astronomers were tracking the upper stage of a Falcon 9 rocket, and were increasingly confident that it would strike the Moon on March 4. This story set off a firestorm of media activity. Much […]
Enlarge / If all goes well, this is how Lunar Resources’ extractor could appear on the lunar surface in a few years. (credit: Lunar Resources) In recent years, much has been said about mining water ice in shadowed craters at the Moon’s South Pole for use as rocket propellant. Enthusiasm for this idea has led […]
Enlarge / The blue area is the basin formed by the particular largest impact on the Moon. Additional craters have formed by subsequent impacts. (credit: NASA/GSFC/University of Arizona ) As the Moon coalesced from the debris of an impact early in the Solar System’s history, typically the steady stream of orbital impacts is thought to […]
Enlarge / Jeff Bezos had hoped to build a lunar lander for NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION (NASA). (credit: Mark Wilson/Getty Images) For Blue Origin, the honeymoon is over. This summer, the company filed a lawsuit against NASA (NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION) , claiming that the agency ignored its own requirements when it awarded […]
Enlarge / An electron micrograph of some of the volcanic material returned by the Chang’e 5 mission. (credit: Beijing SHRIMP Center, Institute of Geology, CAGS) Chang’e-5 represented a major step forward for China’s lunar program, as it was the first of the country’s missions to return samples to Earth. Now the results of dating the […]
Enlarge / China’s Long March 5 rocket made its debut in November, 2016. (credit: Xinhua/Sun Hao) China appears to be accelerating its plans to land on the Moon by 2030 and would use a modified version of an existing rocket to do so. The chief designer of the Long March family of rockets, Long Lehao, […]
Enlarge / NASA’s proposed Mars Sample Return mission received funding in the budget request to support a 2026 launch. (credit: NASA) As part of the federal budget rollout on Friday, NASA released details of the funding it hopes to receive from Congress in fiscal year 2022. The president’s budget request seeks $24.8 billion for the […]