NASA wants to explore the darkest regions of the Moon, but it'll need technology that enables it to study these areas. To expedite the development of those exploration tools, NASA has announced its latest BIG Idea Challenge, one that asks university teams to submit proposals detailing their ideas for technology that would enable this type of Moon activity.
NASA is seeking American space companies that will make cargo runs to the lunar Gateway as part of the space agency's Artemis program. In a statement this week, NASA revealed that it has issued a Request for Proposals, which will give these companies a chance to propose their services for delivering supplies, science experiments, and cargo destined for the Moon.
The world and especially the US is celebrating the 50th anniversary of man's historic and still controversial first landing on the moon. Unfortunately, that first has yet to be repeated to prove that it isn't just a one-time thing. NASA has received the mandate, not to mention the budget, to do exactly that and on the anniversary of the Apollo lunar landing, it is announcing the completion of the crew capsule for its upcoming uncrewed Artemis1 lunar mission.
Back on July 20, 1969, when the Eagle landed on our moon, it was a Hasselblad camera that was chosen to take photographs. Now that we're here 50 years later, Hasselblad isn't about to let that fact be forgotten. As such, they've delivered all the important facts on their participation with the mission, including a full gear readout for the cameras used on each major photograph. ALSO there's a newly-minted special edition moon landing camera ready to roll for consumers this week.
Toyota and the Japanese space agency JAXA have inked an agreement to build a hydrogen-powered lunar rover, which astronauts will be able to drive around the Moon to explore potential resources there. The joint research agreement will see the automaker and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency work together for three years on prototypes, though the final lunar rover isn't expected to launch until around 2029.
The secrets of our Sun may be found much closer to home - in astronomical terms, anyway - as NASA researchers look to the Moon's crust to answer core questions about our solar system. While Earth orbits in the so-called "habitable zone" around the Sun, the reason conditions for intelligent life arose here but not on other planets have long been shrouded in mystery.
NASA's ambitious "Artemis" mission to take American astronauts back to the moon will cost as much as $30 billion over the next half decade, the space agency's chief has confirmed. Administrator Jim Bridenstine also defended the Moon 2024 project over criticism that it was wasteful and could distract NASA from other scientific work.
The biggest crater on the moon (Earth's moon) has a mysterious mass of metal under its surface, so says new evidence published in the scientific journal Geophysical Research Letters. This information was part of a Baylor University study, lead by Peter B. James, Ph.D. and assistant professor of planetary geophysics in Baylor's College of Arts and Sciences. James described the new discovery as an "unexpectedly large amount of mass hundreds of miles underneath the South Pole-Aitken basin."
NASA has announced that its Space Launch System project has reached a 'significant milestone' in the effort to return humans to the Moon. The space agency and Boeing, one of the private companies it tapped as a contractor, have assembled four-fifths of the huge core stage that is key to launching the SLS and related Orion spacecraft. The success brings NASA closer to its Artemis-1 lunar mission.
As anticipated, NASA has named the three private companies that will make cargo deliveries to the Moon. The payload missions will take place under NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program and involve commercial landers equipped with payloads from the space agency. Cargo will include items related to both scientific efforts and various technologies.
The NASA official meant to lead the 2024 Moon mission has unexpectedly quit the agency, after Congress slapped down plans to create a new mission directorate. Mark Sirangelo only joined the agency a month and a half ago, but was widely expected to take the helm at a new group focused on NASA's return to the Moon, the mission that will help pave the way for a manned mission to Mars.
The Moon is not only still active tectonically, but shrinking, NASA says, generating "moonquakes" as it slowly contracts. The new findings combined data from multiple Moon missions that took place nearly five decades ago with the LRO Mission, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter which is currently mapping out the surface of Earth's satellite.