Every year, NASA’s Breakthrough, Innovative, and Game-Changing (BIG) Idea Challenge invites student innovators to build and demonstrate concepts that can benefit future human missions to the Moon and beyond. This year’s theme is “Inflatable Systems for Lunar Operations,” which could greatly reduce the mass and stowed volume of payloads sent to the Moon. This is critical for the Artemis Program as it returns astronauts to the Moon for the first time since the Apollo Era over fifty years ago. It will also reduce the costs of sending payloads to the Moon, Mars, and other deep-space destinations.
Continue reading “Balloon Animals and Bouncy Castles on the Moon. The Case for Inflatable Habitats”China Set Up a Tiny Farm on the Moon in 2019. How Did it Do?
On January 3rd, 2019, China’s Chang’e-4 lander touched down on the far side of the Moon and deployed the Yutu rover. In addition to its many instruments, the rover carried an important science experiment known as the Biological Experiment Payload (BEP). Over the next eight days, this payload conducted a vital experiment where it attempted to grow the first plants on the Moon. Included in the payload were cotton, potato, arabidopsis, and rape seeds, along with fly eggs, yeast, and 18 ml (0.6 fluid oz) of water, which was kept at a constant atmospheric pressure.
The results of this experiment will help inform future Bioregenerative Life Support System (BLSS), which will prove vital to habitats and missions beyond Low Earth Orbit (LEO). A team of scientists from China recently released a study that reviewed the experiment, its results, and its potential implications for future missions to the Moon, Mars, and other deep-space locations. As they concluded, the experiment demonstrated that plants can grow on the Moon despite the intense radiation, low gravity, and prolonged intense light.
Continue reading “China Set Up a Tiny Farm on the Moon in 2019. How Did it Do?”China Showcases its Lunar Exploration Plans
The China National Space Agency (CNSA) has drawn a lot of attention to its space programs in recent years. In addition to their Tiangong space station and crewed missions to Low Earth Orbit (LEO), there’s also been a lot of buzz surrounding the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) and its Human Lunar Space Program. The high points have included the announcement of the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) – a joint operation with Roscosmos – and shared concept art for their next-generation spacecraft and lunar lander.
As always, what we know about China’s plans for space exploration is limited to snippets of news, public statements, and the occasional video, which are the direct result of state-controlled media and tight secrecy regarding the country’s space program. The latest is a bootleg video that recently appeared online, which shows a video presentation that provides some insight into China’s long-term plans for crewed lunar exploration. The video is captioned with the words “China’s lunar space station and development of lunar molten cave base plan,” and it certainly lives up to that description!
Continue reading “China Showcases its Lunar Exploration Plans”Lunar Astronauts Will Need Easy Walking Trails Around the Moon's South Pole
Before this decade is out, NASA plans to return astronauts to the Moon for the first time since the Apollo Era and build the necessary infrastructure to keep sending them back. And they will hardly be alone. Alongside NASA’s Artemis Program, the European Space Agency also plans to send astronauts to the Moon and establish a permanent habitat there (the Moon Village), while China and Russia are working towards creating the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS). Numerous commercial space companies will also be there to provide crew transportation, cargo, and logistical services.
All of this will happen in the Moon’s southern polar region, a topographically complex region characterized by craters, permanently shadowed regions (PSRs), and undulating slopes. This terrain could prove difficult for crews conducting extravehicular activities (EVAs) away from landing sites and habitats. In a recent study, an international team of researchers used data from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) to create a detailed atlas of the region that accounts for all the traverses and descents. This atlas could prove very useful for mission planners as they select landing sites for future exploration.
Continue reading “Lunar Astronauts Will Need Easy Walking Trails Around the Moon's South Pole”Astronomers are Working to Put a Radio Telescope on the Far Side of the Moon by 2025
The Moon will be a popular destination for space programs worldwide in the coming years. By 2025, NASA’s Artemis III mission will land the first astronauts (“the first woman and first person of color”) onto the lunar surface for the first time since the end of the Apollo Era, over fifty years ago. They will be joined by multiple space agencies, as per the Artemis Accords, that will send European, Canadian, Japanese, and astronauts of other nationalities to the lunar surface. These will be followed in short order by taikonauts (China), cosmonauts (Russia), and vyomanauts (India), who will conduct similarly lucrative research and exploration.
Having facilities in orbit of the Moon, like the Artemis Base Camp, the International Lunar Research Station, and others, will enable all manner of scientific research that is not possible on Earth or in Earth orbit. This includes radio astronomy, which would be free of terrestrial interference on the far side of the Moon and sensitive enough to detect light from previously unexplored cosmological periods. This is the purpose of a pathfinder project known as the Lunar Surface Electromagnetics Experiment-Night (LuSEE-Night) that will leave for the Moon next year and spend the next 18 months listening to the cosmos!
Continue reading “Astronomers are Working to Put a Radio Telescope on the Far Side of the Moon by 2025”The Moon's Southern Ice is Relatively Young
Around the Moon’s southern polar region lies the South Pole-Aitken Basin, the single-largest impact basin on the lunar surface. Within this basin, there are numerous permanently shadowed regions (PSRs) that are thought to have trapped water ice over time. These deposits are crucial to future missions like the Artemis Program that will lead to the creation of permanent infrastructure. This water ice will supply crews with a steady source of water for drinking and irrigation and the means for chemically producing oxygen gas and rocket fuel.
For scientists, these PSRs are believed to have emerged when the Moon began migrating away from Earth roughly 2.5 billion years ago. Over time, these regions acted as “cold sinks” and trapped water ice that existed on the lunar surface at the time. However, according to a recent study led by the Planetary Science Institute (PSI), the Moon’s permanently shadowed areas arose less than 2.2 billion years ago and trapped ice even more recently than that. These findings could significantly impact future crewed missions as they indicate that the water ice found in lunar craters could be of more recent origin.
Continue reading “The Moon's Southern Ice is Relatively Young”Some Lunar Regolith is Better for Living Off the Land on the Moon
Between now and the mid-2030s, multiple space agencies hope to send crewed missions to the Moon. of These plans all involve establishing bases around the Moon’s southern polar region, including the Artemis Base Camp and the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS). These facilities will enable a “sustained program of lunar exploration and development,” according to the NASA Artemis Program mission statement. In all cases, plans for building facilities on the surface call for a process known as In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU), where local resources are used as building materials.
This presents a bit of a problem since not all lunar soil (regolith) is well-suited for construction. Much like engineering and construction projects here on Earth, builders need to know what type of soil they are building on and if it can be used to make concrete. In a recent study, planetary scientist Kevin M. Cannon proposed a lunar soil classification scheme for space resource utilization. This could have significant implications for future missions to the Moon, where it would help inform the construction of bases, habitats, and other facilities based on soil type and location.
Continue reading “Some Lunar Regolith is Better for Living Off the Land on the Moon”Every Night and Every Morning, the Moon Rumbles With Tiny Quakes
The Moon was geologically active between 3.7 and 2.5 billion years ago, experiencing quakes, volcanic eruptions, and outgassing. Thanks to the Moon being an airless body, evidence of this past has been carefully preserved in the form of extinct volcanoes, lava tubes, and other features. While the Moon has been geologically inert for billions of years, it still experiences small seismic events due to tidal flexing (because of Earth’s gravitational pull) and temperature variations. These latter events happen regularly and are known as “moonquakes.”
Thanks to the Apollo missions, scientists have measured this activity using seismometers placed on the surface. In a recent NASA-funded study, a team of researchers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) reexamined the seismic data with a machine-learning model. This revealed that moonquakes occur with precise regularity, coinciding with the Sun rising to its peak position in the sky and then slowly setting. In this respect, moonquakes are like a “Lunar Alarm Clock,” which could be useful for future missions and lunar settlers!
Continue reading “Every Night and Every Morning, the Moon Rumbles With Tiny Quakes”China Reveals Its Lunar Lander Design
Last May, as part of the nation’s growing presence in space, the China National Space Agency (CNSA) announced that it had established a Human Lunar Space Program that would send crewed missions to the Moon and culminate in the creation of a lunar base. This came shortly after China and Russia announced that they would be collaborating on future lunar missions, which included the creation of a base around the southern polar region. In June 2022, they announced that this base would be named the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) and released a guide explaining how international partners could join.
On Thursday, August 31st, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) released artists’ renderings of their next-generation spacecraft and lunar lander. The spacecraft will consist of two sections, a reentry capsule, and a service section, while the lunar lander will include a landing section and a propulsion section. According to a statement released by the Agency, these vehicles will deliver crews to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and allow China to send crewed missions to the lunar surface. The release of these images confirms what has been suspected for some time: that China fully intends to land taikonauts on the Moon before 2030.
Continue reading “China Reveals Its Lunar Lander Design”As Night Falls, India’s Lunar Lander/Rover Goes to Sleep. Probably Forever
India’s Chandrayaan-3 mission delivered its Vikram lander and Pragyan rover to the lunar surface on August 23rd. Now, as the lunar day ends two weeks later, the rover’s mission may be over. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has put Pragyan into sleep mode.
Continue reading “As Night Falls, India’s Lunar Lander/Rover Goes to Sleep. Probably Forever”