Tag: Moon
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NASA’s Peregrine Lunar Lander Mission Yields Valuable Data Despite Missing Moon
NASA’s recent mission to send payloads on Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander, launched in January on United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur, faced a setback when a propellant leak prevented the spacecraft from attempting a lunar landing. Despite this, valuable data was still collected from the mission. According to Dan Hendrickson, vice president of Astrobotic, many of…
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Interlune comes out of stealth with its plan to harvest helium-3 and more on the moon
An artist’s conception shows Interlune’s robotic harvester on the moon. (Interlune Illustration) Seattle-based Interlune officially lifted the curtain today on its plans to build a robotic harvester that could extract helium-3 from moon dirt and send it back to Earth for applications ranging from quantum computing to fusion power. Rob Meyerson, a co-founder of the…
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Juno measures oxygen production on Europa
Using NASA’s Juno spacecraft, scientists have calculated the rate of oxygen production on Jupiter’s moon Europa — the first time any spacecraft had directly measured charged oxygen and hydrogen particles from the moon’s atmosphere. From these measurements, the team determined the rate of oxygen production to be much lower than estimated in previous studies. Europa,…
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Blue Origin gets ready for cargo lander’s inaugural moon trip, with humans to follow
An artist’s conception shows Blue Origin’s Blue Moon Mark 1 lander on the moon. (Blue Origin Illustration) Update: Blue Origin’s first uncrewed Blue Moon mission is now set for 2026. Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture is aiming to send an uncrewed lander to the surface of the moon in the next 12 to 16…
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Intuitive Machines’ ‘Odysseus’ becomes first commercial lander to reach the Moon
Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C lander named Odysseus cruises over the near side of the Moon on Feb. 21, 2024, a day ahead of its scheduled landing attempt. Image: Intuitive Machines Update 8:30 p.m. EST: Intuitive Machines confirmed that the lander is upright and sending data. In a day not seen since the Dec. 11, 1972, a…
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NASA faces a quandary with its audacious lunar cargo program
Most of NASA is a pretty buttoned-down place these days. Nearly 70 years old, the space agency is no longer the rambunctious adolescent it was during the race to the Moon in the 1960s. If you go to a NASA field center today, you’re much more likely to get dragged into a meeting or a…
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Intuitive Machines’ Moon lander Odysseus reaches lunar orbit
A image of Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C lander named ‘Odysseus’ captured by one of the spacecraft’s onboard cameras. Image: Intuitive Machines Updated to include the new target landing time. Achieving a successful lunar landing becomes increasingly more tangible for the team at Intuitive Machines with each passing day since launch. On Wednesday, the Houston-based company announced…
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Intuitive Machines’ Moon Lander Beams Back Selfies from Space
A cutting-edge moon lander, Odysseus, has captured its first images from space, showcasing Earth in the backdrop as it embarks on its pioneering mission. Launched atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on February 15, the robotic spacecraft, developed by Intuitive Machines, transmitted several snapshots shortly after separating from the rocket’s second stage. “Intuitive Machines successfully…
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SpaceX, Intuitive Machines launches robotic lander to the Moon
Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C lander, named ‘Odysseus,’ displayed prior to encapsulation inside a pair of SpaceX Falcon 9 payload fairings. Image: SpaceX Update 2:10 p.m. EST: The Nova-C lander successfully separated from the spacecraft and teams were able to acquire signal with the lander. A launch pad billed as the Apollo program’s “Moonport” once again honored…
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IDEFIX Phobos rover sent to Japan ahead of mission to Mars
The Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission is JAXA’s lead mission that plans to survey and explore Mars’ two moons, Phobos and Deimos. While the Japanese agency will build the main payload, the German Space Agency (DLR) and the National Centre for Space Studies (CNES) will contribute to the mission. “IDEFIX,” a small secondary payload, will…