Moon Monday
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.
China and Luna
By Jatan Mehta | Coverage, with context, of China’s audacious robotic and crewed program to explore the Moon.
Moon Monday
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
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
Moon Monday
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
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 #185: China’s lunar constellation plans, mission updates, and more
China’s ambition to build a lunar navcom constellation Ling Xin reports on China’s ongoing studies to have a phased constellation of 30+ satellites which would provide high-precision navigation as well as high-bandwidth communications for most places on the Moon with up to quadruple coverage. Earlier studies focused on
Moon Monday
Moon Monday #182: Lunar samples on Earth, a Canadian robotic arm, lander testing, and more
The first ever samples from the Moon’s farside are now cached on Earth After successfully collecting samples from the Moon’s farside and stowing them in lunar orbit earlier by excellently orchestrating multiple Mooncraft over months, CNSA made the Chang’e 6 mission’s lunar orbiter module fly towards
Moon Monday
Moon Monday #179: Chang’e 6 samples in lunar orbit, a fiery Starship, a critique of CLPS, and more
I’m truly excited to welcome Astrolab as the latest yearly sponsor of my Moon Monday blog+newsletter! 🚀 California-based Venturi Astrolab Inc. (Astrolab) is developing a fleet of large multi-purpose rovers for advanced exploration of our Moon. To that end, Astrolab leads one of the three teams NASA selected earlier
Moon Monday
Moon Monday #178: The fourth Chinese lunar landing, dearMoon, mission updates, and more
I’m over the Moon to share that Open Lunar Foundation is continuing to be a sponsor of my Moon Monday blog+newsletter for the fourth year in a row! 🌗 Open Lunar is a non-profit organization that brings together and enables a diverse set of experts to develop key technical
Moon Monday
Moon Monday #177: China’s lunar base, the depths of polar water, mission updates, and mountains
Welcome to the fourth Chinese lunar special after Moon Monday #174, #175 and #176. In this edition, the top story focuses on contextualizing all we know about China’s plans to create a long-term Moonbase. Through a CASC news release on April 26, chief designer of China's lunar
Moon Monday
Moon Monday #176: The anatomy of China’s first crewed lunar landing, CLPS updates, and more
Welcome to the third Chinese lunar special after Moon Monday #174 and Moon Monday #175. In this edition, the top story focuses on contextualizing all that comprises China’s first crewed Moon landing mission. It’s incredible how China has made systematic strides with their Moon missions. The successful lunar