Moon Monday #229: China extends lead in lunar orbital infrastructure, gets an edge in future crewed missions over the US
Plus: Examples of how Western media narratives of Chinese lunar activities misjudge capabilities and intent
Moon Monday #228: The need for resilience in private lunar landing missions through expansive and collaborative testing
ispace Japan’s second Moon lander RESILIENCE launched in January with the aim of a Moon landing. But just like its predecessor Hakuto-R’s fate about two years ago, RESILIENCE crashed into the Moon during its landing attempt on June 6. It was a moment of heartbreak for several lunar
A pressing PSLV rocket failure and orbital congestion to brood over | Indian Space Progress #28
Plus more mission updates.
Moon Monday #227: Proposed cuts, cancellations, continuations, and changes to NASA’s lunar missions
And other mission updates.
Moon Monday #226: Blue Origin aims to launch its first two Moon missions by next year—with nearly no NASA payloads
Plus: Firefly to carry UAE’s second lunar rover and more.
Why Moon missions need their own Wikipedia and beyond
Our Moon may be one of the largest satellites in the Solar System but its exploration has been concentrated on select areas. One of these is low lunar orbit, where mapping spacecraft from three countries have been concurrently flying from pole to pole between 50 to 150 kilometers above the
Moon Monday #225: Lots of global lunar mission updates 🌙
Key news of the month: China has achieved daytime Earth-Moon distance measurement wherein a 1.2-meter telescope reflected an infrared laser off of a small retroreflector on the 61-kilogram Tiandu 1 lunar orbiter. This was the first ever daytime laser distance measurement using an orbiter, accomplished despite massive interference from
Moon Monday #224: A curious find from Chandrayaan 3, Artemis updates, and more
Two announcements before we begin: 1. I’m honored to be moderating a fantastic panel on modern themes in global lunar exploration at the international Global Space Exploration Conference (GLEX) on Friday, May 9. If you’re attending GLEX in New Delhi, join us for the session. And, if you’
Indian Space Progress #27: Three months of mission updates, and fixing ISRO’s monthly summaries
ISRO has been publishing monthly summaries of the varied activities and programs of India’s Department of Space (DOS) for years. Lately though, there have been consistent delays in publishing them by a month or two, and sometimes even more. The summaries have been trimmed too, now conveying less than
Moon Monday #223: International researchers to study Chang’e lunar samples, including US ones but without NASA funding
And more such interesting Moon exploration updates from China’s National Space Day on April 24.
Moon Monday #222: How China navigated failure to nail down lunar navigation success
Plus: Exploration and science updates from the US, South Korea, and Europe.
Moon Monday #221: The US is failing to explore lunar water as the principal goal of Artemis
And, countries allied with the US are facing delays in their own missions, allowing China to lead in this aspect of lunar exploration too.