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.
CLPS
By Jatan Mehta | Coverage, with context, of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Services Program to send the agency’s science & technology payloads to the Moon on privately owned landers.
Moon Monday
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
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
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 #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
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
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 #184: Funding farside ventures, lunar traffic, and Moon Monday in video!
On the intersection of ispace, NASA CLPS, funding, and science The publicly traded ispace Japan is taking another loan from the Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, amounting to $62 million, to continue working on its upcoming three Moon missions: * The company’s second lunar lander M2/RESILIENCE, launching end of 2024