Photo credit: CNET
Yutu-2 is a robotic lunar rover that was launched on the Chang’e 4 mission to the Moon December 7 2018. It made a successful soft landing on the Moon’s far side on January 3, 2019, and has been exploring its mysteries ever since. Recently, it came across a bizarre cube-shaped structure on the northern horizon, around 80km away in the Von Karman crater. The team controller the rover will spend the next 2-3 lunar days investigating it. Read more for additional information and a bonus video on another oddity it found.
Russia-based industrial designer Andrew Fabishevskiy came up with a two-wheeled lunar rover in 2020, or motorcycle if you will, and now, Hookie Co. has made it a reality. It’s based around an all-electric CAKE (Swedish electric bike company) drivetrain, was built in Dresden, Germany, and can be seen at the Petersen Museum in Los Angeles through March, 2022. Making the actual bike took 9-months from start to finish, with backing from Puraglobe Syntainics. Read more for a video, additional pictures and information.
Since the lunar surface has limited sunlight and extremely cold temperatures, landing on the Moon is a difficult task to say the least. Fortunately, there’s lots of dust (lunar regolith), and Masten’s FAST spacecraft has just the technology to make use of it. Simply put, the spacecraft will inject ceramic particles into the rocket’s plumes, thus coating the regolith as the lander descends toward the surface. This forces the particles to collide with the surface, resulting in a solid landing pad. Read more for additional pictures and information.
When NASA’s Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) lands near the western edge of the Nobile Crater at the Moon’s South Pole in 2023, it will map and explore the region’s surface as well as subsurface for water. It’s set to launch atop a SpaceX Falcon-Heavy rocket for delivery to the Moon by Astrobotic’s Griffin lander under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative. Read more for two videos and additional information.
Photo credit: RG123
Ever wonder what Buzz Aldrin saw when Neil Armstrong captured this famous photograph during the Apollo 11 mission? If so, then one visual effects artist also wanted to see the result, so the lunar vista reflected in his helmet was ‘unwrapped’, resulting in a 360-degree astronaut’s-eye panoramic view of the Moon. To be more specific, this image was taken in July, 1969 when Aldrin stood near the leg of the Eagle lunar module. Read more for the full image and additional information.
Scientists Siyuan Chen, Xin Gao and Shuyu Sun as well as researchers from The Chinese University of Hong Kong, are using applied machine learning and artificial intelligence to automate the identification of potential landing as well as exploration sites on the Moon. Their goal is to look for lunar features such as craters and rilles, which are allegedly hot spots for energy resources like uranium and helium-3—a for nuclear fusion. Read more for a short video and additional information.
NASA has just finalized a $935-million contract with Northrop Grumman to develop the Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO) for Gateway, a critical way station that will be in orbit around the Moon during the Artemis Moon program. This Gateway aims to support science investigations and enable surface landings at the Moon, while also preparing astronauts for future missions to Mars. Read more for two videos and additional information.
Photo credit: Johannes Rieder
With NASA’s upcoming Artemis missions, it would make sense to install a high-speed internet network of sorts on the Moon for astronauts to use, and that’s where the Nokia Luna Net comes in. It consists of the main unit, lander, and three smaller nodes. When fully deployed the main unit as well as smaller nodes form a mesh communication network fully autonomously, powered by thermo-generators capable of generating electricity in extreme temperatures. Read more for two videos, additional pictures and information.
Living on the Moon may sound far-fetched now, but it will most certainly become a reality in the coming decades, and the European Space Agency (ESA) wants to spark your imagination with this interesting lunar habitat, created by one of the world’s leading architectural firms Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM). Retired NASA astronaut Jeffrey Hoffman, now Professor at MIT’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, worked with the SOM team on the livability of their design, based on his experiences in space. Read more for a video and additional information.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has partnered with Sony, TOMY Company, Ltd. (Tomy Company), and Doshisha University to develop a transformable lunar robot. This innovative robot will be ultra-compact and ultra-lightweight capable of traversing in the harsh lunar environment by employing the miniaturization technologies of TOMY Company as well as Doshisha University. Read more for an additional picture and information.