By Jatan Mehta | The world’s only newsletter dedicated to covering and contextualizing global lunar exploration updates, including plans to return humans this decade.
Moon Monday
NASA’s VIPER rover endures a steep SLOPE The VIPER rover, launching in 2024 on an Astrobotic lander as part of NASA’s CLPS program, will closely study lunar water and other volatile resources on the Moon’s south pole to inform future robotic and crewed missions. On top of
CLPS
This week’s Moon Monday is a CLPS special, with all of its promises, risks, and drama. I hope you enjoy the deep dive as much as I did writing it. :) NASA eyes prestigious farside Moon landing in boldest CLPS bet yet Last week NASA awarded its eighth contract under
Moon Monday
NASA is sticking with the SLS rocket for Artemis IX and beyond On July 21, NASA and Northrop Grumman will test fire a new, full-scale solid rocket booster as part of an ongoing test campaign to converge on a final booster design for the SLS rocket’s most powerful Block
Moon Monday
The mystery of the Moon’s volcanic water China’s Chang’e 5 mission, which brought to Earth 1.7 kilograms of lunar samples from near a volcanic dome in December 2020, confirmed that the Moon was volcanically active 2 billion years ago, a recent enough time on geological scales.
Moon Monday
Rocket Lab puts CAPSTONE on the path to the Moon On June 28, Rocket Lab successfully launched the NASA-funded and Advanced Space-built $13 million CAPSTONE spacecraft from New Zealand. At about 300 kilograms, CAPSTONE and the upgraded Photon third stage together are the heaviest payload the company’s small Electron
Moon Monday
We’re about to have our first Moon mission launch since Chang’e 5 in 2020! CAPSTONE launches for the Moon tomorrow The NASA-funded and Advanced Space-built CAPSTONE spacecraft is set to launch tomorrow, June 28, from New Zealand on Rocket Lab’s small Electron launch vehicle with an upgraded
CLPS
NASA and ESA enhance their collaboration on exploring our Moon At the ESA Ministerial Council meeting in Netherlands on June 15, 2022, NASA and ESA extended their collaboration in several ways, including expanding their cooperation in lunar exploration. As part of an agreement, UK’s Lunar Pathfinder spacecraft will be
Moon Monday
There has been a plethora of updates last week as well as last month on upcoming lunar missions so today’s Moon Monday is presented a bit differently—developments are grouped by type. Despite some more mission delays, seeing so many spacecraft on the verge of launching and so much
Moon Monday
The first Artemis astronauts to land on the Moon will wear privately developed spacesuits After requesting proposals from U.S. companies in October last year, NASA has selected Axiom Space and Collins Aerospace to provide advanced and highly flexible spacesuits and associated services for future astronauts on the Moon as
CLPS
A Japanese astronaut will land on the Moon with NASA’s help On May 23, the U.S. and Japan extended their collaboration on Artemis human lunar exploration from the NASA-led Gateway space station to the Moon’s surface. In addition to the previous arrangement of providing seats to Japanese
Moon Monday
Mapping NASA’s Moon to Mars objectives to efforts on Earth On May 17, NASA released a draft set of 50 one-liner, high-level Moon to Mars objectives, notably the first time anything specific on the matter has been put out publicly. The objectives, aimed at establishing a permanent human presence
Moon Monday
Plants grow in lunar soil, but barely like it For the first time ever, researchers have successfully grown plants in lunar soil, particularly in several samples from Apollo 11, 12 and 17 missions. The plants weren’t as healthy as the control group plants were in lunar soil simulants made
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