Tag Archives: Moon

The European Space Agency (ESA) is learning how to touch down safely at the South Pole of the Moon, without ever leaving Earth. Actual Moon landings seem to be on the horizon in the next decade via the Artemis program, and astronauts are going to have to learn to handle the unique challenges of landing in the Moon’s polar environment. ...

The waning gibbous moon as viewed from the International Space Station on Jan. 21. Credit: NASA The White House’s fiscal year 2023 budget request for NASA totals $26 billion, including $7.5 billion for the agency’s Artemis moon program, a boost over this year’s budget to help pay for development of a second human-rated lander to ferry astronauts to the lunar ...

Let’s not sugarcoat it. Exploring the Moon is not for the faint of heart! It’s an airless body, which means there is no atmosphere, the surface temperatures are extreme, and there’s lots of radiation. The low gravity also means you can never really walk on the surface and have to bounce around in a bulky spacesuit until you fall over. ...

The dream of building a permanent settlement on the Moon: a place where humans from all walks of life can come together and give rise to a new culture and identity. A place where vital scientific research and experiments can be conducted, lunar industries created, and people can go for a little “adventure tourism.” It’s been the stuff of science ...

Despite all its wonderful properties, water isn’t the only resource needed for space exploration.  Carbon is another important ingredient for many necessary materials, such as steel, rocket fuel, and biomaterials.  Therefore, proponents of lunar exploration should be excited by a recent study led by Dr. Norbert Schorghofer of the Planetary Science Institute that found natural “cold traps” for carbon dioxide ...

When it comes to the future of space exploration, a handful of practices are essential for mission planners. Foremost among them is the concept of In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU), providing food, water, construction materials, and other vital elements using local resources. And when it comes to missions destined for the Moon and Mars in the coming years, the ability to ...

NASA has pushed back the timetable for landing astronauts on the moon for the first time in more than a half-century from 2024 to no earlier than 2025. Blue Origin’s unsuccessful legal challenge to a $2.9 billion lunar lander contract awarded to SpaceX was one of the factors behind the delay in the Artemis moon program, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson ...

Even though the first man set foot on the Moon 52 years ago, this satellite still has many mysteries for scientific and commercial organizations that continue to explore it. Astrobotic is one such company as it is a developer of robotics for lunar and planetary missions. It was founded in 2007 by a staff of The Robotics Institute Carnegie Mellon ...

According to the most widely accepted theories, the Moon formed about 4.5 billion years ago after a Mars-sized object (Theia) collided with Earth. After the resulting debris accreted to create the Earth-Moon system, the Moon spent many eons cooling down. This meant that a few billion years ago, lakes of lava were flowing across the surface of the Moon, which ...

It’s been a long and winding road getting the James Webb Space Telescope from concept to reality. And finally, after decades of planning, work, delays, and cost overruns, the next generation of space telescopes is finally ready to launch. But even now, as the telescope might be secretly traveling by cargo ship to the European Space Agency (ESA) launch site ...