NASA, Japan Advance Space Cooperation, Sign Agreement for Lunar Rover

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and Japan’s Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) Masahito Moriyama have signed an agreement to advance sustainable human exploration of the Moon. Japan will design, develop, and operate a pressurized rover for crewed…
Lunar Dawn Team Awarded NASA Lunar Terrain Vehicle Contract

DENVER, April 3, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — NASA has awarded a Lunar Terrain Vehicle Services (LTVS) contract to the Lunar Dawn team, led by Lunar Outpost as the prime contractor along with its principal partner Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT) and teammates General…
China’s Queqiao-2 relay satellite enters lunar orbit

HELSINKI — China’s Queqiao-2 communications relay satellite entered lunar orbit March 24, paving the way for a lunar far side sample return mission. Queqiao-2 began a 19-minute-long braking burn at 12:46 p.m. Eastern Sunday (1646 UTC), allowing the spacecraft to…
From Munich to the Moon

The European mission control centre near Munich, Germany, is set to undergo a transformation into a Moon mission control centre, tasked with supporting operations for missions to a lunar space station, the lunar surface and beyond. Today marks a significant…
Intuitive Machines makes first U.S. moon landing in 51 years

For the first time since the last of the Apollo missions in 1972, an American spacecraft reached the surface of the moon Thursday, a significant step toward NASA’s plan to eventually return astronauts to Earth’s closest celestial neighbor. After a…
Japan’s successful Moon landing was the most precise ever

Japan has become the fifth country to soft-land a spacecraft on the Moon, using precision technology that allowed it to touch down closer to its target landing site than any mission has before. However, the spacecraft might have survived on…
The Aqualunar Challenge, UK

The Aqualunar Challenge is a £1.2m international challenge prize focused on making human habitation in space possible by finding ways to purify water buried beneath the Moon’s surface. This is being delivered by Challenge Works on behalf of the UK…
DARPA picks 14 companies for lunar architecture study

WASHINGTON — DARPA has selected 14 companies, ranging from small startups to established aerospace corporations, to participate in a study on developing commercial lunar infrastructure. DARPA announced Dec. 5 that 14 companies will collaborate over the next seven months on…
Sierra Space Secures DARPA Contract for Lunar Oxygen Extraction Framework for LunA-10 Capability Study

LOUISVILLE, Colo. – Dec. 05, 2023 – Sierra Space, a leading pureplay commercial space company building the first end-to-end business and technology platform in space, announced today that it secured a significant contract with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Under this contract,…