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
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
I’m delighted to share that The Orbital Index is continuing being a Moon Monday sponsor for the third year in a row! 🚀 Their crisp, technical archive of weekly space updates over the last five years is genuinely worth perusing, and searching within, because Andrew, Ben and Sarajane ensure it’
Moon Monday
NASA selects science instruments to be deployed on the Moon by Artemis III astronauts In a historic return since Apollo, NASA aims to land astronauts on our Moon again in late 2026 with Artemis III. What science instruments will they carry to deploy on the lunar south pole for advancing
CLPS
In Moon Monday #166, I wrote how Intuitive Machines and NASA skewed the success criteria of the former’s first Moon landing mission. I did not think the article would be taken as well as it was: Celestial Citizen, in their latest Continuum newsletter: While a private endeavor like Intuitive
Moon Monday
An FYI before we begin: If you follow me on social media—especially LinkedIn, Twitter, the Fediverse or Bluesky—read this life update from my other blog: Embracing a simple but effective digital life. An intuitive success criteria? It turns out more retrospective corrections are needed for the February 22
Moon Monday
I’m thrilled to welcome Off Planet Research as the newest sponsor of Moon Monday! The Everett-based company specializes in creating lunar soil simulants that help test landers, rovers, and science experiments with high fidelity. Personally, I’m intrigued by their icy regolith simulant OPRFLCROSS2 as it falls under a
CLPS
An announcement before we begin this week’s Moon Monday: I’m honored and stoked to have been invited by the European Space Agency to deliver a talk on Chandrayaan 3 and India’s lunar ambitions at the Space for Inspiration event this Thursday, January 18. If you’re attending
Articles
With a fleet of NASA-supported robotic Moon landers part of the agency’s CLPS program launching throughout this decade, I’ve compiled an exhaustive rundown for you to be up to speed on these novel missions: All about CLPS Moon landing missions 🌗 I update this page every month or so.
CLPS
Astrobotic launches its first spacecraft built to land on the Moon At 7:18 UTC today, January 8, Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander blasted off to space onboard the inaugural flight of ULA’s Vulcan rocket, at long last marking the formal start of missions part of NASA’s CLPS
Articles
A look at the armada of robotic landers NASA is riding to the Moon this decade.
CLPS
This is a half-yearly appreciation note, and an introduction for readers subscribed after April, that my Moon Monday newsletter is being supported by sponsor Epsilon3—for the third year in a row! Led by Laura and Max, Epsilon3 is a web-based platform to manage, streamline, and reduce risk in complex
Moon Monday
NASA gets serious about extracting oxygen on the Moon On November 6, NASA formally requested input from the US industry on how to go about (competitively) funding a Moon mission payload that will demonstrate extracting oxygen from lunar soil and rocks. Called Lunar Infrastructure Foundational Technologies (LIFT-1), NASA aims for
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