Moon Monday #202: A bao-burrito-bhel of global lunar updates

Dating farside volcanic samples, awaiting the next wave of landers, and disliking opaque orbital operations.

Moon Monday #201: Scientists can now study exotic Chang’e 6 lunar samples

Plus: New round of Chang’e 5 sample studies, gifting part of the Moon, and Sino-US cooperation

Moon Monday #200: Thank you, a crewed Chinese rover, Artemis updates, and more

Welcome to the 200th edition of my Moon Monday blog+newsletter! 🚀🌗 I’d like to take this moment to highlight four things working on Moon Monday has enabled: 1. An extensive 4-year archive of curated and contextualized global lunar exploration developments, with embedded links to everything. All editions are completely

I write for you, not social media or SEO

Many of my headlines make little sense to Google, Web Search Engines, and for SEO. For example, I titled Moon Monday #199 as “Not the fault in our stars but certainly stressful faults on our Moon”. Most likely, mainstream social media algorithms don’t care much for such headlines either.

Moon Monday #199: Not the fault in our stars but certainly stressful faults on our Moon

Let’s study Moonquakes to not let them shake a Moonbase.

Moon Monday #198: Suit up to walk under Moonlight, and grab global mission updates

First look at the Artemis Moonwalking suit Following China’s unveiling of its lunar spacesuit last month, Axiom Space has revealed the latest design of its AxEMU suit that astronauts will wear on NASA’s crewed Artemis III lunar surface mission later this decade. The first-time unveiling of the suit

Discussing India’s lunar exploration heading with Carnegie India (podcast)

I was a guest on Carnegie India’s podcast Interpreting India. In light of the recently approved Chandrayaan 4 sample return mission, we discuss for a good 45 minutes where India’s Moon exploration plans are heading, and what are the enablers and constraints on the increasingly complex road for

Moon Monday #197: Starship Artemis, and lunar mission updates

NASA’s road to the Moon inches through Starship SpaceX’s fifth launch of its fully integrated Starship Super Heavy rocket on October 13 was a resounding success, with both the Super Heavy booster and the Starship second stage completing their flight as well as soft return objectives. With this

Indian Space Progress #20–21: ISRO’s plan to study Venus alongside NASA and ESA

Also in this special edition: ISRO’s ambitions to fetch samples from the Moon, build a space station, and develop a heavy-lift rocket!

Moon Monday #196: Confusion about lunar water and LUPEX, and papers plus mission updates

You can now follow my articles on some non-questionable social networks that also federate (interoperate): Flipboard, Mastodon and Bluesky. The hunt for water on the Moon continues US researchers find that permanently shadowed regions up to 77° latitude—which is outside the Moon’s south pole—could host surface and

Let’s explore our Moon’s mountains! 🌖

The Moon is home to some amazing mountains. Unlike the millions of years it takes for most mountains on Earth to form via slowly colliding tectonic plates, most lunar mountains form near-instantly through asteroid or cometary impacts. Here are some resources to explore them. 🗻 1. With cool elevation graphs and

Moon Monday #195: Little LUNA on Earth, a Sino spacesuit, and communicating navcom

You know how I remarked in the previous Moon Monday about having two feature stories instead of one to adequately contextualize big new developments? Well, this week’s Moon Monday has three! For Europe, China, and the US. 🙈 Europe’s new test facility brings more of those lunar vibes on

Videos

Video: The next Moon landing missions by Intuitive Machines for NASA CLPS

A popular YouTube channel has worked with me to create another video based on my Moon Monday blog+newsletter, this time on the next three Moon landing missions by Intuitive Machines for NASA as part of the agency’s CLPS program. Note: I didn’t choose the video title. My

Moon Monday

Moon Monday #194: On the approval of India’s Chandrayaan 4 sample return mission, and first look at Chang’e 6 samples

This week’s Moon Monday has not one but two feature stories! So much has been happening in lunar exploration this whole year that I’ve transitioned to writing deep dives more frequently so as to adequately capture and contextualize big updates. If you appreciate my efforts to bring you

Moon Monday

Moon Monday #193: Repurposing lunar missions to enable deep space exploration, and launches on the horizon

After a week full of chores, writing this week’s Moon Monday yesterday and today has made me feel alive again. Hope you enjoy this edition as there’s a lot to contextualize! 🤓 Continuing the trend, China repurposes Chang’e 6 orbiter module The Chang’e 6 orbiter module, which

Moon Monday

Moon Monday #192: From trying to revive VIPER to advancing Australian lunar technologies

The latest effort to save VIPER Members of the US Congress are stepping up efforts in the ongoing scramble to save the VIPER rover mission, which was envisioned to uniquely study lunar water deposits. Specifically, representatives in the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology wrote an open letter to

Moon Monday

Moon Monday #191: A stream of CLPS and Artemis lunar mission updates

Intuitive Machines to launch a fourth Moon mission for NASA NASA has awarded Intuitive Machines a $116.9 million contract to deliver six science & technology payloads to the Moon’s south pole in 2027. The mission part of NASA’s CLPS program is the fourth and largest such task

Indian Space Progress

Indian Space Progress #19: On the new rocket in town, and many mission updates

A nimble new launch(er) On August 16, ISRO launched its smallest and newest rocket SSLV, which successfully placed the agency’s 175-kilogram EOS-08 Earth observation satellite into its intended 475-kilometer circular orbit. The satellite carries a number of novel technological components as well as an innovative remote sensing method

Moon Monday

Moon Monday #190: On the varied importance of the Chandrayaan 3 rover, and more mission updates

Grab some tea, coffee, or beverage of your choice because this week’s Moon Monday is a sci-tech deep dive! 🌝 Chandrayaan 3 contributes to learning our Moon’s origin and evolution The first ever ground-based measurements of high-latitude lunar soil and rocks made by the Chandrayaan 3 rover’s Alpha

Articles

On celebrating Chandrayaan 3’s Moon landing, or that of Apollo

Many readers have asked me this week if I plan on blogging something today for the anniversary of Chandrayaan 3’s Moon landing, which India now celebrates as National Space Day. The answer is the same as what I do for Apollo anniversaries: Nothing. Don’t get me wrong. I’

Moon Monday

Moon Monday #189: The next lunar missions by Intuitive Machines for NASA CLPS, and more things that orbit Luna

First lander to drill on the Moon’s south pole delayed for good Jeff Foust reports that NASA will provide an additional $12.4 million to Intuitive Machines for its upcoming second Moon landing mission (IM-2) part of the agency’s CLPS program for work related to changing the landing

Moon Monday

Moon Monday #188: Navigating the aftermath of VIPER’s woes, a CLPS payload for Blue, and more

Before we begin this week’s Moon Monday, I’m excited to share that I’ll be conducting a study on Indo-US lunar exploration as an Adjunct Scholar at the Takshashila Institution! As India too takes on increasingly complex Moon missions, my aim with the study is to identify specific

Moon Monday

Moon Monday #187: Exploring lava tubes, and more Artemis woes

Radar data from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has helped scientists confirm that the lunar pit of Mare Tranquillitatis indeed does lead into a wide lava tube/cave for at least 80 meters. These results corroborate what scientists long suspected about many lunar pits leading to underground passages based

Moon Monday

Moon Monday #186: VIPER’s CLPS conundrum, ispace’s rover, and more

Going deeper into VIPER Much has been said about NASA’s July 17 announcement to cancel the VIPER rover supposed to fly to the Moon’s south pole on Astrobotic’s Griffin lander mid-decade as part of the agency’s CLPS program to uniquely explore water ice there. Instead of