Tag: Moon

China abruptly cancels launch of Chang’e-7 lander, targeting the Moon’s south pole

8:00 am

Landing sites at the Moon's South Pole
Planned landings presently targeting the Moon’s south pole.

China yesterday suddenly postponed the launch of its Chang’e-7 lander this week that was targeting a lunar landing on the rim of Shackleton Crater at the Moon’s south pole, delaying it to next year.

The official statement in China’s state-run press was very brief:

China’s Chang’e-7 lunar probe does not meet launch conditions, and its launch therefore cannot take place during the planned window this year, the China Manned Space Agency said Sunday. The assessment was conducted following the principle of prudence, reliability and absolute mission success, the agency said.

It appears that the requirements of the mission and orbital mechanics mean that the next launch window won’t occur for at least four months, but according to Chinese sources the new launch date has slipped until 2027.

No specific reason for the postponement was provided. Some are speculating there was an issue found with the payload. Others are guessing the launch was canceled because the coastal Wenchang spaceport is too close to Typhoon Narra that is presently stalled off of the Chinese/Vietnamese coast.

Either way, this delay puts a crimp in China’s lunar program and its goal of establishing some science operations at the south pole. It gives the U.S. a window now to get there first. From a science perspective, the delay is also significant. Chang’e-7 included a mini-hoppers and a rover, both aimed at traveling into Shackleton to look for the theorized water ice thought to be in its permanently shadowed regions. At present we do not know for sure if there is any ice there.

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LRO snaps picture of crater created by Falcon 9 impact on Moon

3:27 pm

Before and after images
Before and after images. Click for original.

The science team for NASA’s Lunar Reconniassance Orbiter (LRO) today released high resolution before and after pictures of the location on the Moon where a Falcon 9 upper stage crashed on August 5, 2026.

They were able to locate the impact point using data provided by South Korea’s Danuri lunar orbiter, which took the first impact images but from a greater distance and from the side.

The new crater (19.4759°N, 266.7138°E, 511 meters elevation) is 18 meters in diameter and is less than 3 meters deep (constrained with a shadow measurement). The distinctive V-shaped ejecta pattern on the south side of the crater is consistent with natural impactors hitting the Moon at low angles relative to the surface. In this case, the booster impacted at about 31° from horizontal; the forbidden zone (bright area on the south side of the crater) seen here is consistent with low-angle natural impacts. Other spacecraft impacts, such as the large Apollo Saturn S-IVB stage craters, do not always follow the same rules as natural impacts. This deviation may be due to the relatively odd mass distribution within a rocket. Upon impact, most of the booster consists of empty fuel tanks with a very heavy engine at one end. The final shape of the crater and the distribution of ejecta might be affected by the orientation of the booster upon impact (i.e., heavy end down, on its side, light end down, or somewhere in between). If the heavy end hits first, perhaps the crater and ejecta behave more like a natural event.

Why the mixed dark and bright ejecta? The Moon is covered in a layer of soil, known as regolith. Over time, the top portion of the regolith is constantly bombarded by the solar wind, galactic cosmic rays, and micrometeorite impacts. These external forces tend to darken and redden the regolith to a depth of roughly 50 centimeters. As an asteroid, or rocket body, first contacts the regolith, particles are jetted out at high velocity. As the body buries itself and explodes, it throws out deeper subsurface material, forming an ejecta blanket around the crater rim. In the Falcon 9 crater, the darker, streaky material was likely derived from the mature upper 50 centimeters of the regolith. In contrast, the brighter material near the crater rim came from the deeper, immature portion of the regolith (>50 centimeters below the surface).

As noted previously, such impacts have occurred before, and are not of much consequence, other than the scientific data outlined above. When lunar bases are established the issue will be of more concern.

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China publishes a new updated geological map of the Moon

9:00 am

Updated geological map of the Moon

China yesterday announced the publication of a new geological map of the Moon that has twice the resolution of its 2024 map and now also includes data from the samples brought back by its Chang’e-5 and Chang’e-6 landers.

A Chinese research team has completed an updated geologic map of the entire moon featuring a scale of 1:5 million, the Institute of Geology, Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences (IGCAGS), said on Thursday. … Specifically, a primary achievement of this update is the recalibration of the moon’s ancient geologic eras. The new map systematically updates the age boundaries of the moon’s three ancient geologic periods, namely the Aitkenian, Nectarian and Imbrian periods, drawing on recent advances in international chronology.

Crucially, Chang’e-5 samples confirmed volcanic activity on the moon as recently as 2 billion years ago, extending its geologic lifespan by 1 billion years from the previously accepted 3 billion years. This independent dating data has now become a cornerstone of the global lunar geologic timescale. Highlighting these spatial discoveries, the new global lunar geologic map is the first comprehensive canvas to bear exclusive findings from the Chang’e-6 mission.

Unfortunately, China’s state-run press provided no link to a higher resolution image of the map, so all I can offer is the low resolution version above.

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South Korea’s Danuri lunar orbiter gets before and after pictures of Falcon 9 impact on Moon

8:53 am

Before and after images of Falcon 9 lunar impact
Click for original image.

By doing a quick adjustment in the orbit of South Korea’s Danuri lunar orbiter, engineers were able to photograph the dark smear caused by the impact of a Falcon 9 upper stage as it hit the Moon on August 5, 2026.

The before and after pictures are to the right. The impact occurred near 113-mile wide Einstein Crater, located close to the limb of the near side of the Moon. The upper stage ended up on this impact trajectory because it was used in 2025 to launch both Firefly’s Blue Ghost-1 and Ispace’s Resilience lunar landers to the Moon. Its course was designed to miss the Moon after deploying both landers but after about 18 months its path with the Moon intersected.

The Korea AeroSpace Administration (KASA) confirmed from this observational data that there were topographical changes near the collision site and traces of ejected material spreading. In the released before-and-after comparison images, a previously unseen elongated black mark appears on the lunar surface after the collision. Danuri had previously captured two baseline images around the predicted impact site on July 9 to facilitate comparison.

In addition, astronomers using the Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile detected spectroscopic evidence of the impact’s plume, sodium ejected from the surface and lithium from the rocket.

Meanwhile, the insane leftist anti-Musk movement at Wall Street and in the propaganda press decided this not very unusual and quite trivial event [pdf] proved without doubt that SpaceX was a failed company.

The absurdity of Wall Street analysts linking this impact with the fall in SpaceX’s stock price is beyond parody.

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NASA hires Terran Orbital and Advanced Space to build and fly Capstone-2

12:48 pm

Duel Capstone-2 orbiters
Artist rendering of dual Capstone-2 orbiters. Click for original.

Capitalism in space: NASA yesterday announced it has hired Advanced Space, the company that acted as mission control for the Capstone-1 lunar orbiter (built by Terran Orbital), to be the lead for the Capstone-2 mission, sending two small probes (to once again be built by Terran Orbital) to lunar orbit to test formation flying.

The demonstration will fly two identical spacecraft of approximately 400 kilograms (882 pounds) from Terran Orbital Systems, Inc. Mission operators will conduct a series of rendezvous and proximity operations and loitering – or formation flying – techniques in lunar orbit with each spacecraft to better understand the trajectories of the spacecraft under the simultaneous influence of Earth and Moon gravities, otherwise known as three-body orbits.

The CAPSTONE 02 mission will use ground tracking measurements, optical sensors, and celestial bodies to help one spacecraft locate and rendezvous with another. The mission will apply navigation strategies similar to those planned for Orion’s approach to a lunar lander in deep space, helping NASA build confidence in these techniques for future exploration. Each CAPSTONE 02 spacecraft will have the ability to switch between ‘chaser’ and ‘target’ roles, testing a broad range of operational scenarios under a variety of environmental conditions in cislunar space.

The launch its targeting 2027, though when in that year is not stated. Note that this entire mission will be built, launched, and operated by private companies. NASA’s only job is outlining the technical knowledge it wishes to learn for future manned missions. Terran Orbital and Advanced Space will then provide it.

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Japan’s lunar lander startup Ispace wins $74 million contract from Europe

8:36 am

Artist rendering of Ispace's Ultra lunar lander
Artist rendering of Ispace’s Ultra lunar lander

Only a little more than a week after NASA canceled a major lunar lander contract with the Japan’s lunar lander startup Ispace, the company’s European division has won a $74 million lunar lander contract from the European Space Agency (ESA).

The agreement represents ESA’s commitment to funding MAGPIE, Europe’s first lunar polar ice exploration rover and its flight. MAGPIE will investigate the Moon’s south polar region, advancing scientific understanding of lunar volatiles, water ice stability and regolith properties while supporting future resource prospecting to enable lunar exploration.

The contract, valued at €65 million, funds the full remaining delivery of the MAGPIE mission, including rover and payload development, manufacture, testing, transportation to the lunar surface and lunar surface operations.

MAGPIE will fly on Ispace’s planned fourth mission, scheduled for a 2029 launch and already under construction. That lander, dubbed Ultra, is being funded by Japan’s Space Strategy Fund (designed to encourage Japanese private enterprise). This new contract apparently provides it a European payload.

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Scientists rally to observe the Falcon 9 that will hit the Moon on August 5, 2026

12:48 pm

Falcon 9 impact location

On August 5, 2026 at precisely 2:35 am (Easten), the upper stage used by the Falcon 9 rocket that launched in 2025 the Blue Ghost and Hakuto-R lunar landers will impact the Moon.

Scientists have now published a paper [pdf], outlining the details of that impact and calling on the astronomical community, both professional and amateur, to conduct observations. The image to the right, showing the location on the Moon where the impact will occur, comes from Figure 1 of the paper. From the paper’s conclusion:

The upcoming Falcon 9 upper stage impact on the Moon on 2026 August 5, presents an ideal opportunity for observers in the Americas and space-based assets to study a significant lunar impact in real time. Potential observables from this event include the flash at the time of impact (likely lasting less than a second) and the ejecta plume (lasting minutes to tens of minutes) Although some specifics of the impact (such as its precise visual magnitude) remain unclear due to the complexity of the physical processes involved, this event is an ideal opportunity to calibrate measurements of flash brightness and plume dynamics against a known event, should either be detected.

This event also provides an opportunity to test pipelines for measuring flash properties to locate impact events seismically, and to better understand the multi-modal hazards posed to future lunar infrastructure and astronauts from space debris impacting the Moon. It also provides an opportunity to test our capability to monitor the cislunar environment. Given the renewed interest in the lunar exploration, the impact of artificial bodies on the Moon could is almost certain to become more frequent. To avoid uncontrolled increases in the amount of space debris in lunar orbit (as is the case now in low Earth orbit), advancing monitoring of cislunar space from ground- and space-based facilities will be key.

The scientists note that the impact will occur at night when the Moon is visible in South America and in the low and mid-latitudes of North America. Though the impact flash could be as bright as magnitude 3 (thus visible to the naked eye), its location during the lunar day will likely make it too faint for ordinary observers. They say that a telescope will be needed, that binoculars will not be sufficient.

The paper is also very enlightening in that it provides a detailed history of past observed lunar impacts, both natural and artificial.

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NASA cancels Draper/Ispace unmanned lunar lander contract

12:45 pm

Artist rendering of Ispace's Ultra lunar lander
Artist rendering of Ispace’s Ultra lunar lander

According to a press release from the Japanese lunar lander startup Ispace, NASA last week canceled its contract with Draper for a lunar lander mission in 2030, a mission that Ispace was the main subcontractor.

Ispace technologies U.S., (Ispace-U.S.) an American lunar exploration company and subsidiary of Ispace, inc. (ispace), and Draper, a non-profit research, development and manufacturing company, today announced that Draper has mutually agreed with NASA to end the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) task order CP-12.

Since July 2022, Ispace-U.S. served as a subcontractor to Draper to provide a lunar lander transportation service for NASA’s CLPS task order CP-12. Following the agreement with NASA on the primary contract, Draper and ispace-U.S. expects the mutual termination of the subcontract between the two companies.

For that 2030 mission Ispace was really the main contractor — having already built and launched two failred lunar landers — but as a Japanese company (even with a U.S. division), it needed an American company to act as lead in order to win the NASA contract. Draper fulfilled that purpose.

Draper however has little experience building lunar landers. Ispace was really doing the job. The problem was that Ispace discovered with its two failures that its original lander design was insufficient. The development of a new larger lander, dubbed Ultra, has caused significant delays.

It appears NASA and Draper decided this arrangement was not acceptable. Both were probably uncomfortable with its faux lead position. Ispace’s delays also were likely a factor.

It is certainly possible for Ispace alone to win later contracts. It has said it intends to bid. Moreover, as Japan is both a partner in the Artemis program and a signatory to the Artemis Accords, there really is little reason for NASA or Ispace to play these games. NASA can issue a contract directly to it. It simply has to make sure it issues contracts to American companies first.

Below is the present rough schedule of missions in NASA’s Artemis program, as revised under NASA administrator Jared Isaacman’s leadership, and adjusted to include this cancellation.

NASA’s Artemis mission schedule:
» Read more

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NASA outlines the mission plan for Artemis-3

8:01 am

Artist's rendering of Orion docked to Starship
Artist’s rendering of Orion docked to Starship.

In a press release late yesterday, NASA detailed at length its present plans for the Artemis-3 mission next year, in which a crewed Orion capsule will conduct docking maneuvers first with a Blue Origin test version of its Blue Moon manned lunar lander and next with a SpaceX refitted Version-3 Starship.

For the Artemis III mission, the Blue Moon test lander will be based on Blue Origin’s current architecture for its Mark 2 crew lander, incorporating all the major avionics and flight software and control systems to ensure flight operations from this demonstration mission can directly translate to crewed lunar flights. Up to two crew members, donning orange Orion crew survival system suits, will open the hatch to enter the Blue Origin test lander. The production hardware must incorporate many of the same systems and subsystems, including an Environmental Control and Life Support System (ECLSS), a crew cabin, and avionics. The Blue Origin lander also will fly with an instrumented lunar surface spacesuit mass simulator. Like the suited “Moonikin” manikin that flew aboard Orion during the uncrewed Artemis I test flight, the low-fidelity spacesuit mass simulator will provide real-time feedback about the environment within the Blue Moon crew cabin.

SpaceX’s Starship lander test article will use a Starship Version 3, currently in production and testing, with an added docking system installed on the nose of the 171-foot spacecraft, enabling NASA and SpaceX to evaluate how the entire integrated stack of Orion and the Starship test lander interact. NASA and SpaceX are identifying controllability and communications tests for the Artemis III mission. Astronauts will not enter the Starship test lander during Artemis III.

The launch sequence will have Blue Origin use its New Glenn rocket to launch its Blue Moon test vehicle first, with a maximum orbital mission of 30 days. During that time period SLS will launch Orion, which will then conduct its rendezvous and docking with Blue Moon. Once this is completed SpaceX will then launch Starship on Superheavy. Once in orbit Orion will rendezvous and dock with it.

That’s the plan at this point, though much remains uncertain. New Glenn remains grounded after the May 28, 2026 launchpad explosion. Starship has not yet flown a full orbital mission. No version of Blue Moon, either manned or unmanned has flown at all. Whether all three will be ready for this mission, presently scheduled tentatively for late ’27, is a question we cannot answer at this moment.

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Voyager completes purchase of Astrobotic; obtains $250 million credit line

9:15 am

Starlab design as of December 2025
Starlab design as of December 2025

The space station startup Voyager Technologies — the lead company in the consortium building the Starlab space station — has in the past week made major moves to solidify its financial situation as well as diversify its holdings.

First, it announced it had “closed a $250 million credit facility led by J.P. Morgan.”

The upsized facility expands Voyager’s financial flexibility, providing liquidity at scale to support accelerating customer demand across the company’s space, defense and national security portfolio.

I don’t claim to understand the jargon of the banking business, but I think this translates into a $250 million credit line with J.P. Morgan, giving Voyager access to cash when it needs it. The collateral for this credit line is probably based on the undisclosed capital investment the company obtained in January and May 2026. It also provides us a good indication of the amount of capital obtained in those earlier announcements.

Next, Voyager announced today that it has completed its acquisition of the lunar lander startup Astrobotic, first revealed in early June. In doing so, it also noted the new $298 million contracts NASA had issued to Astrobotic on June 30, 2026 for two more Peregrine lunar landers.

The Astrobotic subsidiary will now operate under the name Voyager Lunar Systems.

These announcements once again strengthen the position of Voyager and its Starlab station in the competition to win a construction contract under NASA’s station program.

My updated ranking of the five American space stations presently under development:
» Read more

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NASA ends its participation in the lunar orbiter CAPSTONE

8:30 am

After four years of operation, NASA has terminated its participation in the privately built and operated lunar orbiter CAPSTONE.

The orbiter was built jointly by Terran Orbital and Rocket Lab, and launched by Rocket Lab. In space it was operated not by NASA but by the private company Advanced Space. On its way to the Moon Advanced Space’s engineers lost contact with the spacecraft twice, but were able to re-establish communications in time to save the mission, get it into orbit, where it spent four years testing a host of technologies NASA then planned to use in its Artemis program.

The orbiter is not dead however. Advanced Space “will continue to use the spacecraft as a technology development testbed.”

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The present state of NASA’s Artemis program

12:00 pm

Artemis logo

The aggressive effort by NASA administrator Jared Isaacman to rationalize and speed up the agency’s Artemis program to get back to the Moon and build a base there has resulted in a plethora of new missions, almost all of which are being built by the private sector.

Today Isaacman and his Moon Base program manager, Carlos García-Galán, held a press conference where they announced four more missions.

  • Astrobotic won a $297.9 million contract to build and fly two more of its smaller Peregrine lunar landers. This lander attempted a landing in 2024, but a fuel leak right after launch made that impossible.
  • Firefly won a $144.2 million contract to build and fly another Blue Ghost lander, the only commercial lander to successfully achieve a lunar soft landing, in 2025.
  • Intuitive Machines won a $148.3 million contract to build and fly another Nova-C lander. This lander attempted two landings, and in both cases it tipped over just after launch. The Nova-D design, under development, has a lower center of gravity, but for reasons not well explained by García-Galán NASA chose to go with the Nova-C design.

All are considered part of the first phase of the Artemis program and thus are targeting a launch by 2028.

In addition, NASA is considering using back-up equipment developed to build the Curiosity and Perseverance Mars rovers to create quickly and relatively inexpensively a lunar rover that they have dubbed “Promise.”

In order to make some sense of this program and these many misssions, I have created below a chronological list of confirmed missions, with their present status indicated (including uncertainties), as well as some unconfirmed missions based on my own speculations. All dates are tentative at this point, even if NASA has provided us a specific target date.

Several things to note as you review this list. While there are handful of missions going elsewhere, Isaacman is attempting to focus the program toward landing at the planned lunar base near the south pole, and to do so as fast as possible in the most effective way. The cargo missions and rovers are to get there ahead of the manned missions, in order to provide the astronauts supplies and surface transportation once they arrive. Those same missions will also do some preliminary scouting, and likely carry power and excavation equpiment needed to build the base.

It is also important to note that this plan is still in its very early stages of development. Many of the rockets and spacecraft and landers needed for these missions are not yet operational. Many have not yet demonstrated the capability to do what is requested. Thus, the program will certainly not follow the plan as presently outlined by the agency. Moreover, there will be failures along the way.

The program however is designed to accelerate development, to accept those failures within the program’s larger scope. If one mission fails, others are on the table to fly quickly to overcome the loss. And since the program is relying on the entire aerospace industry, the agency will have great redundancy from many companies.

I welcome comments and suggested changes or corrections. I fully intend to publish this list repeatedly over the coming years as the Artemis program evolves. And as the private sector begins flying its own missions to the Moon, independent of NASA, I intend to include those as well.
» Read more

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NASA asks industry for proposals for building lunar base infrastructure

8:57 am

NASA today issued a request for feedback from the private sector for building its Moon Base, including the infrastructure for providing “surface power, in-situ resource utilization, [and] advanced manufacturing.”

The solicitation focuses on five technologies that NASA considers necessary but insufficiently developed at this point, some of which it also considers necessary for exploring and colonizing the entire solar system.

  • Solar power generation, including power management and distribution, and energy storage.
  • Radioisotope power, for use by operating spacecraft systems in the solar system’s “darkest, dustiest, and most remote places”.
  • In-situ resource utilization, including using lunar materials to produce fuel, water, and oxygen.
  • In-space advanced manufacturing for producing “essential tools and materials” on the Moon and Mars.
  • Innovative nanomaterials, for use in spacecraft and instruments in order to reduce their weight and size at launch.

The announcement notes that NASA is requesting input from industry, hoping it can “identify any areas of ambiguity, or concerns.” The agency will then revise accordingly.

This solicitation is another example of NASA administrator Jared Isaacman’s push to rationalize the entire Artemis program, to take seriously the real requirements for building a Moon base. Previously NASA made noises along these lines, but management did not do the proper due diligence to figure out what needs to get built in order to actually make a Moon base happen.

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Firefly buys the AI navigation technology used on its Blue Ghost lunar landing

8:45 am

Blue Ghost's shadow on the Moon, with the Earth in the background
Blue Ghost’s shadow on the Moon, with the Earth in the background,
after its 2025 touchdown.

Firefly has now acquired Space-ng, the company that makes the AI navigation technology and software that Firefly used on its successful Blue Ghost lunar landing in 2025.

Space-ng’s vision navigation software was utilized during Firefly’s historic Blue Ghost Mission 1 to determine position and attitude, detect hazardous lunar terrain, and autonomously redirect Blue Ghost in real-time, enabling a safe, precise touchdown within the Moon’s Mare Crisium.

…In addition to vision navigation software, Space-ng brings high-resolution spacecraft cameras and AI compute hardware to enable advanced space domain awareness, onboard optical navigation, rendezvous and proximity operations, and docking without requiring GPS or GNSS. Firefly plans to integrate Space-ng’s technologies across its fleet of lunar landers and orbital vehicles to support its growing mission manifest, including three additional lunar missions under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative, another lunar mission supporting NASA MoonFall, and a space domain awareness mission for the Defense Innovation Unit.

Of all the recent attempts by commercial companies to land on the Moon, Firefly is the only one to have a complete success. While Space-ng’s technology worked perfectly to guide Blue Ghost to a safe touch down, the guidance technology used by Intuitive Machines (twice), Ispace (twice), Beresheet, and the first Vikram lander for India all failed close to landing. No wonder Firefly decided to buy it.

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A look back at a significant moment in human history: the first picture of the Moon’s far side

12:14 pm

The first picture ever taken of the Moon's far side, by Luna-3
Click for original image.

Today’s cool image is being posted not because of its beauty or high resolution, but because it was a significant first that shined a light on a mystery that had baffled all humanity since the first time a human being in Africa looked up and observed the Moon.

The picture to the right, reduced slightly and smoothed to remove some camera artifacts, was the first picture ever taken of the hidden far side of the Moon, captured by the Soviet Union’s Luna-3 probe on October 7, 1959, one day after it had passed less than 3,900 miles above the surface. As it moved away, it looked back, and took this picture from a distance of about 40,000 miles.

The picture ain’t what we are used to nowadays from space, but you need to put yourself back in time to truly appreciate it. For literally the entire history of humanity, this view had been hidden. Dreamers, philosophers, scientists, and ordinary people would look at the near side of the Moon almost nightly, but no one knew what was on the other side. Whole religious myths grew up about this unknown. Some science fiction writers of the 19th century fantasized there was air and water there and thus housed an alien civilization, purposely positioned so we couldn’t see it.

Suddenly, with this picture, that side was no longer hidden. This one Luna-3 picture showed humanity that the Moon’s far side was not much different than the near side, though much more cratered with fewer dark mare regions. It had no air or water. Nor were there alien civilizations.

But that age-old mystery was now solved. For those living in the 1950s, it was something of a revelation to see this picture. For those who came after, it is important to try to imagine the significance of that revelation. Suddenly, the mysteries of the universe were no longer unsolvable. Suddenly, we had the ability to solve them.

This picture, like all new knowledge, also brought with it new mysteries, based not on a hidden view but on real data and real questions. Now the goal was understand that data in order to solve the history of the Moon’s geology and how it fit into the formation of the Earth and the entire solar system. That endeavor is still on-going, with its solution not yet entirely in sight.

One last point: Though this picture is woefully inadequate compared to modern planetary images, it also carries a remarkable amount of good information that has since been confirmed by other spacecraft. To get an idea, compare it with a similar global view produced using Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO)’s full dataset. The features match quite well, and a close look at the Luna 3 picture reveals many details not immediately evident that match well with the LRO image. The Russian engineers who made this happen should be rememberd and honored for their achievement.

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Venturi Space expands investment in new French factory for building Astrolab’s rover

8:59 am

Venturi Space, the European half of the partnership with the rover startup Astrolab, is increasing its investment in a new French factory from 100 million to 250 million euros.

On 1 June, Venturi Space announced that it had increased its expected investment in the new facility to €250 million. The announcement indicated that it would no longer begin with the initial smaller facility and would instead move directly to the full 16,000-square-metre planned “technology centre.” This likely accounts for the additional €150 million in funding.

According to the company’s 1 June press release, the facility will be used for the “design and manufacture of critical technologies for lunar and Martian mobility, as well as [for] the assembly of the rovers developed by the company.” …Venturi Space is providing wheels, batteries, and battery management systems to US-based Venturi Astrolab for use aboard its rovers. During a 26 May event, NASA announced that Venturi Astrolab was one of two companies selected to build rovers for the agency’s Artemis programme.

The partnership is an unusual one. Venturi Space and Astrolab are separate companies, working together to build Astrolab’s rovers for NASA. Venturi however is also developing its own rover for the European Space Agency.

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New study using Chandrayaan-2 data again suggests ice in crater near Moon’s south pole

9:06 am

The Moon's south pole region

The uncertainty of science: A new study by scientists in India using data from the Indian lunar orbiter Chandrayaan-2 has once again found evidence strongly suggesting the existence of water ice in several permanently shadowed craters near Moon’s south pole.

The findings are based on observations made by the Chandrayaan-2 orbiter’s Dual Frequency Synthetic Aperture Radar (DFSAR), a sophisticated microwave imaging instrument capable of probing beneath the lunar surface.

Among the craters examined, scientists found particularly strong evidence of subsurface ice in a 1.1-kilometre-wide crater located within the larger Faustini crater near the Moon’s south pole. Researchers said the crater displayed a distinctive “lobate-rim morphology”- a flow-like structural pattern that may indicate the impact event penetrated an ice-rich subsurface layer.

On the map above the green dot to the right of the south pole marks the location of the small crater inside Faustini Crater. Their conclusions were based first on microwave data suggesting subsurface ice, and second on the lobate shape of this crater’s rim, which has a kind blobby look implying the material is muddy and impregnated with ice.

Increasingly the data from all sources seems to suggest that if there is ice in these permanently shadowed craters, it is likely impregnated in the soil, and will require processing to extract.

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A call to my readers: Find the location of NASA’s lunar base!

8:46 am

Moon base map from NASA's May 26, 2026 presentation

Moon's south pole, with landers indicated
Click for interactive LRO map.

During yesterday’s NASA press conference outlining the first unmanned missions to the agency’s planned moon base near the Moon’s south pole, Carlos García-Galán, Moon Base program executive, included the graphic above of that base in his presentation.

Though García-Galán said this lunar base map is in the south pole region, the map provided no crater names nor any longitude or latitude information. Nor did it provide a scale to determine the size of these craters. Because of this lack of information, I was unable to identify the map’s precise location near the Moon’s south pole, even after searching extensively at the QuickMap site for Lunar Reconnaissance Rover (LRO) images, now managed by Intuitive Machines images and found here. The map to the right was created from that QuickMap site, annotated by me later with the planned landing locations for Chang’e-7 and Griffin, plus the sites where Nova-C and Vikram landed previously.

I am now asking you, my readers, to do some detective work. See if you can pinpoint the location of the map above with the LRO south pole imagery at the link. The crater patterns should provide the first clue. Remember also that the orientation of the map might require significant rotation to match the LRO data. Remember too that the scale of the map above could require you to zoom in a great deal.

If you think you have a match, post it in the comments below.

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NASA outlines new program of unmanned missions to Moon

2:15 pm

NASA's Moon base plans as of May 2026
NASA’s Moon base plans as of May 2026.

NASA officials today outlined its new reshaped program of unmanned missions to Moon, designed it says to lay the first groundwork for the manned lunar base to follow.

You can watch the press conference here. The map to the right comes from one viewgraph during that conference, and apparently shows the planned lunar base area, which officials said could cover about 100 square miles. Though officials said this is in the south pole region, I have not been able to identify the precise location, using the global map produced by Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. The large crater northeast of the base does not appear to be Shackleton Crater.

The schedule includes four already planned missions, two new missions awarded to Blue Origin in a $188 million contract to deliver two new rovers, and a new hopper mission mission to be delivered by Firefly’s Blue Ghost lander. The schedule is as follows:
» Read more

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The geology of the Moon’s far side, revealed in pictures taken during Artemis-2

9:04 am

A sample of Andrew McCarthy's work
A sample of Andrew McCarthy’s work. Click for original.

When Artemis-2 commander Reid Wiseman took pictures as his Orion capsule swung around the far side of the Moon, he did so as per the instructions of astrophotographer Andrew McCarthy, thus producing enhanced-color photographs capable of distinguishing the lunar geology with more detail.

Astrophotographer Andrew McCarthy is known for turning the moon into something it decidedly isn’t to the naked eye; a colorful, mineral-rich landscape that looks more like a geological survey than the grey orb hanging in the night sky. His technique relies on stacking hundreds or thousands of images together to suppress noise and amplify the subtle spectroscopic differences between different surface materials. The result is both scientifically accurate and visually arresting.
Linking up with Artemis

As Space.com details, just weeks before the Artemis II launch window, McCarthy DM’d mission commander and NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman with a proposal: could Wiseman shoot the moon the same way McCarthy shoots the moon? It turns out he could. “He was immediately onboard,” McCarthy said. “It was a dream come true, obviously, for me, but I saw it as this very unique opportunity.”

McCarthy worked up a plan alongside Wiseman and NASA’s lunar photography team, the same group that had trained the Orion crew on their camera kit. As regular readers will already know, the primary workhorse was a Nikon D5 DSLR paired with an 80–400 mm Nikkor lens, a decade-old body chosen specifically for its exceptional high-ISO performance. Wiseman shot burst sequences at varying exposures throughout the flyby, generating a dataset McCarthy could stack back on Earth.

The picture to the right is a small sample of McCarthy’s work.

Hat tip to reader Ferris Akel.

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