By Jatan Mehta | Coverage, with context, of Japan’s multiple efforts to explore the Moon.
Moon Monday
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
Moon Monday
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
Indian Space Progress
Plus: A host of new lunar science results from Chandrayaan 2 and 3. Enjoy this 3200-word Chandrayaan-special. 🌙
Moon Monday
There’s a lot in this Moon Monday edition to unpack. Grab yourself a coffee or another mild drug of choice and let’s get started. 🤓 Chang’e 6 samples produce two more big results Until now, all the direct evidence of our Moon being covered in a global magma
Moon Monday
CLPS and Artemis updates * On February 13, Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Moon lander part of NASA’s CLPS program successfully fired its engines for 4 minutes and 15 seconds to enter an elliptical orbit around Luna. Over the rest of February, Blue Ghost will fire its engines multiple times
Moon Monday
Plus: Scientific archives as your Wild Card, a Draw Four for Boeing, UNO Reverse with Japan, and a stack of Artemis updates.
Moon Monday
Updates on CLPS, ispace, Artemis, Chandrayaan 4, and more. Read to the end for a fact check on an op-ed.
Moon Monday
Plus, my experience at the Galaxy Forum in Wenchang, China to that end.
Japan and Selene
Thank you for having signed up for my no-award winning Moon Monday blog+newsletter! Its motivation was to exist because nothing like it did to capture the world’s march to the Moon. 🌝 If you’re one of the 8,000+ lunatics who enjoys this free curated community resource, you
Japan and Selene
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
Moon Monday
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
Indian Space Progress
In this month’s Indian Space Progress edition, I want to highlight how increasing independence in being able to plan and execute planetary missions can lead to uniquely impactful collaborations between organizations globally. India’s Chandrayaan program has been becoming incrementally indigenous, and the two stories below highlight its utility
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