Archive for the ‘Space News’ Category
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May 22nd, 2025
Image credit: Firefly Aerospace
From the folks that brought you the successful robotic Moon lander, the Blue Ghost, Firefly Aerospace has new news about the group’s second lunar outing in 2026.
Add into the payload mix the United Arab Emirates Rashid 2 Rover – a Blue Ghost foray to the far side of the Moon.
Moon mobility
UAE’s Rashid 2 Rover will demonstrate lunar surface mobility and on-the-spot resource utilization technologies.
The Rashid 2 Rover, outfitted with multiple cameras and probes, is slated to demonstrate lunar surface mobility on the far side of the Moon and utilize various materials on its wheels to evaluate their durability when exposed to lunar dust. Information gleaned is meant to help guide the development of future lunar technologies, such as spacesuits, habitats, and other critical infrastructure.
Elytra vehicle will first deploy Blue Ghost and the European Space Agency’s Lunar Pathfinder satellite in lunar orbit.
Image credit: Firefly Aerospace
Firefly’s Elytra vehicle
During Blue Ghost Mission 2 operations, Firefly’s Elytra vehicle will first deploy the Blue Ghost lander and the European Space Agency’s Lunar Pathfinder satellite in lunar orbit.
Blue Ghost will then touch down on the far side of the Moon to deliver the UAE’s Rashid 2 Rover, Australia’s Fleet Space-supplied Seismic Payload for Interplanetary Discovery, Exploration and Research (SPIDER) payload, NASA’s Lunar Surface Electromagnetics Experiment-Night (LuSEE-Night) and User Terminal.
NASA involvement comes as part of the space agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative.
Australia’s Fleet Space-supplied Seismic Payload for Interplanetary Discovery, Exploration and Research (SPIDER) payload.
Image credit: Fleet Space
Long-haul communications
Elytra will remain in lunar orbit to provide long-haul communications and enable radio frequency calibration services for LuSEE-Night.
LuSEE-Night is a pathfinder which will study the Moon’s radio environment and potentially take a first look at a previously unobserved era in our cosmic history.
Firefly has already begun qualifying and assembling flight hardware for Blue Ghost Mission 2.
The Cedar Park, Texas-based group completed the first fully successful commercial Moon landing on March 2 of this year, performing 14 days of surface operations and marking the longest commercial operations on the Moon to date.
Blue Ghost sits on lunar surface – marking the the longest commercial operations on the Moon to date.
Image credit: Firefly Aerospace
Posted in 
A multimedia artist and her Miami-based team are preparing “PARABOLES,” billed as the first-ever microgravity performance.
Natasha Tsakos is working with the MIT Space Exploration Initiative (MIT SEI) and parabolic-provider Zero-G, to bring together professionals from Cirque du Soleil, National Geographic, and NASA.
Artistic arcs
The performance is to be staged during twenty-five 22-second-long gravity-defying arcs on a parabolic flight that creates microgravity conditions. Free of the tug of Earth gravity, the event is to be captured by two cinematographers operating within a free-floating zone.
A cinematic art film, a short documentary, and an immersive installation are to be the products from the performance, all premiering in 2026.
Image credit: microgravityadventures
Kickstarter campaign
“PARABOLES is the next step for art-kind. For two decades, my moonshot has been to create shows for space, original forms and formats for our spacefaring future,” Tsakos explains.
The production has already secured key partnerships: MIT SEI is managing flight logistics; Live Arts Miami and O Cinema are supporting training and premiere exhibition. Zero-G is providing rehearsal flights.
To assist in funding the performance, the public has been invited to participate in a Kickstarter campaign that was launched on May 20. Contributions will directly support astronautical training, production, and flight costs.
Illustration of Haven-1 space station and docked SpaceX Dragon.
Image credit: Vast
Off-world experience
Tsakos asks, as the private space industry rapidly expands and humanity prepares for extended missions to the Moon and Mars, what role will the arts play in shaping our off-world experience?
As a theatrical innovator and space-focused multidisciplinary artist, Tsakos argues that the arts must be more than an afterthought in space exploration.
For more information on the PARABOLES initiative, go to:
https://youtu.be/JlH9fwxI5jM?si=rwoyRY92FARLHgK2
As well as:
https://www.natashatsakos.com/microgravityadventures
and:
https://youtu.be/nEmjcz5LS-o?si=ri1cKF5ubI986Jxp
To take part in the Kickstarter campaign, go to:
Confirmed SpaceX debris found in Australia.
Photo courtesy: Brad Tucker
Space junk that came to rest in New South Wales, Australia has undergone analysis by NASA orbital debris specialists.
Back in July 2022, the trunk section from the SpaceX Dragon Crew-1 mission reentered and over the following month, several fragments were recovered. One of the surviving fragments located was a portion of the Dragon’s trunk, constructed largely of carbon fiber-reinforced polymer composite.
Hefty piece of SpaceX space junk found in Australia last July.
Image courtesy: Brad Tucker
Use of that material “has garnered profound interest from the space safety community in recent years due to the nature of the material to not completely demise upon reentry,” reports the NASA Orbital Debris Program Office at NASA’s Johnson Space Center.
The results of a look at the debris has been noted in the May 2025 Orbital Debris Quarterly News.
Sites of interest
To obtain the debris, NASA’s Orbital Debris Program Office worked with SpaceX and the Australian Space Agency to characterize the extent of the reentry damage experienced by the fragment and compare it to reentry model predictions.
Under scrutiny, some 32 sites of interest were identified for study including exposed carbon fiber/epoxy composite, thermal protection material, melted metal surfaces, and fractured metal surfaces.
SpaceX trunk fragment under study.
Image credit: A. Dougherty/B. Greene/C. Ostrom
Microscope observations of composite surfaces showed a striking variability in degree of charring, “indicative of extended periods of protection of some parts of the trunk structure from reentry heating,” the study team reports.
Breakup and demise process
The images collected did provide a glimpse into the conditions faced by the trunk materials during the tumble to Earth.
Several preliminary conclusions have been drawn about the reentry environment experienced by the Dragon Crew-1 trunk using initial microscope measurements.
Primarily, given the large difference in charring on the inside versus the outside surface, “it seems that the trunk was not tumbling significantly during most of the reentry, and even after breakup, the recovered fragment seems to have had a relatively stable attitude at least during the peak heating period,” the debris analysis experts report.
SpaceX Dragon “trunk.”
Image credit: SpaceX
This research and subsequent work will provide insight into the reentry breakup and demise process for structures composed predominantly of carbon fiber/epoxy and carbon fiber/phenolic composite materials, they add, as well as “validate computational models for reentry human casualty risk from modern orbital debris.”
Earth orbit to Moon orbit…and beyond. Blue Origin’s Transporter.
Image credit: Blue Origin/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Blue Origin is set to reveal a new piece of space infrastructure to support lunar operations.
Called the “Transporter,” the vehicle can be launched on a single New Glenn booster to low Earth orbit. It would be fueled up by left over propellant from the booster’s 2nd stage, then haul the hydrogen and oxygen to lunar orbit.
Zero boil off of cryogenic fuel has long been a tough nut to crack.
Opening up the solar system
1960s Apollo lunar lander design (left) contrasted to Blue Origin Mark 1 and Mark 2 vehicles. Image credit: Blue Origin/Inside Outer Space screengrab
John Couluris, Senior Vice President of Lunar Permanence for Blue Origin, discussed the company’s lunar plans today at a Lunar Surface Innovation Consortium (LSIC) meeting being held at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.
Transporter can haul roughly 100 metric tons from Earth orbit to lunar orbit, Couluris said. By December of this year flight units are to be fully built.
“This will open up the solar system,” Couluris added, with Transporter able to shove 30 metric tons to Mars orbit.
Making its Mark on the Moon
Couluris also detailed critical work on Blue Origin’s Mark 1 and Mark 2 lunar landers that’s now underway.
Blue Moon MK1 will provide cargo transport, leveraging the 7-meter fairing of the New Glenn launch vehicle, to deliver metric tons anywhere on the lunar surface.
Under NASA’s NextSTEP-2 Appendix P Sustaining Lunar Development (SLD) contract, Blue Origin and its National Team partners will develop and fly the Blue Moon MK2 lunar lander that can make a precision landing anywhere on the Moon’s surface.
Blue Origin Mark 1 Moon lander.
Image credit: Blue Origin
Blue Origin Mark 2 crewed Moon lander.
Image credit: Blue Origin
Image credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
China’s is preparing to enter the asteroid sample-return mission business, launching before month’s end its Tianwen-2 robotic probe.
To be launched within the coming two weeks from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan province, the Tianwen-2 robotic probe was moved to the launch preparation area at the center last Sunday.
Tianwen-2, an orbiter and a reentry module, is to be lofted by a Long March 3B booster and will target 2016 HO3, the smallest and closest “quasi-satellite” to Earth.
Mechanical arm action
After approaching 2016 HO3, the robotic spacecraft will orbit the asteroid for months and slip close to the space rock and use a mechanical arm to scoop dust from the object’s surface.
Image credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Tianwen-2 will then fly back to Earth’s orbit and release its reentry module for Earth recovery. The return capsule is expected to land 100 grams of material to Earth in about two and a half years.
Next target
The orbiter will then head out toward a main-belt comet called 311P to continue its scientific exploration tasks.
311P is part of the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Its physical composition is like those that of comets, but its orbital characteristics resemble those of asteroids, according to astrophysicists.
Image credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Interplanetary missions
Tianwen-1 was launched in July 2020 and touched down on Mars in May 2021. The probe deployed the Zhurong rover that scouted about Utopia Planitia for several months.
According to Shan Zhongde, China National Space Administration’s director, said that Tianwen-2 is planned to fly alongside and sample an asteroid, return to Earth and fly alongside a main-belt comet in a single launch.
“In the future, we will advance deep space exploration missions such as the Tianwen-3 Mars sample-return mission and Tianwen-4 to Jupiter in an orderly manner,” Shan said.
En route to Jupiter, the Europa Clipper.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
“It has been a tumultuous few weeks, and we know there are many issues weighing heavily on our community,” explains a communiqué issued today from the Outer Planets Assessment Group (OPAG).
The OPAG community message addresses a “serious concern” regarding recent removal of abstracts and archived advisory group (AG) community documents on the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) website.
Purportedly, hundreds (over a thousand by one count) of conference and workshop abstracts have been removed…and space scientists are furious.
For years, NASA has taken steps to advance diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) in their workforce. However, the space agency has started to implement Trump White House directives related to DEIA, such as restricting funding for initiatives associated with DEIA – as well as removing documents that include DEIA discussion.
Open dialogues
Indeed, the overall future of the AGs is not clear – and at a time when projected NASA budget cuts to space science and exploration are looming.
The AG list includes ExMAG [Extraterrestrial Materials Assessment Group], LEAG [Lunar Exploration Analysis Group], MAPSIT [Mapping and Planetary Spatial Infrastructure Team], MEPAG [Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group], MExAG [Mercury Exploration Assessment Group], OPAG [Outer Planets Assessment Group], OWWG [Ocean Worlds Working Group], SBAG [Small Bodies Assessment Group], and the VEXAG [Venus Exploration Analysis Group].
Artwork depicts Dragonfly spacecraft skirting over Titan terrain. Image credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Steve Gribben
OPAG meetings and other AGs are essentially the only forums where the space science community receives direct information from NASA leadership enabling open dialogues with the NASA Planetary Science Division.
“Our meetings are also a place where we can freely discuss the needs of our community, find consensus, and distill that consensus into findings that are received and read directly by NASA Headquarters,” explains the OPAG statement.
Rapidly evolving landscape
The OPAG was established by NASA in late 2004 to identify scientific priorities and pathways for exploration in the outer solar system. OPAG provides input to NASA but does not make recommendations.
Image credit: NASA
As explained in the OPAG communiqué, “we are at a crossroads.”
What OPAG and the other AGs face is a “rapidly evolving landscape” and a myriad of issues.
In the past, President Trump actions include, but are not limited to, the following Executive Orders and Presidential memoranda:
Ending Radical and Wasteful Government Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) Programs and Preferencing
Initial Guidance Regarding Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Access (DEIA) Executive Orders
Go to: https://chcoc.gov/content/initial-guidance-regarding-deia-executive-orders
Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions
Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government
Initial Guidance Regarding President Trump’s Executive Order Defending Women
Unleashing American Energy
Go to: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/unleashing-american-energy/
Image credit: White House
Breach of trust
In the OPAG message is a disclaimer that the views and opinions expressed in today’s email are those of the authors — Morgan Cable, OPAG Co-Chair and Carol Paty, OPAG Co-Chair — and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or positions of the Universities Space Research Association (USRA), the USRA-led Lunar and Planetary Institute and its LPSC annual meeting.
The AG chairs have protested the recent actions taken and are in ongoing discussions with USRA to hopefully restore these critical records. “This breach of trust has deeply impacted our community,” the email explains.
Bright and dark streaks covering the slopes of the Olympus Mons aureole as seen by the European Space Agency’s ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter using its Color and Stereo Surface Imaging System (CaSSIS). The image covers an area of approximately 50 square kilometers and was captured on October 3, 2024.
Image credit: ESA
Bright and dark streaks on Mars have sparked decades of debate.
Some experts interpret them as streaks, also cataloged as recurring slope lineae (RSL), created by flows of salty water, or brine, that could remain liquid long enough to form them. If so, perhaps they offer rare habitable zones on the Red Planet, a world where temperatures rarely rise above freezing.
But a new study led by planetary scientists at the University of Bern and Brown University throws cold water – nope, better to say — dry processes involving wind and dust activity!
On patrol – NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).
Image credit: NASA/JPL
Evolving over time
Researchers used a machine learning algorithm to scan and catalogue slope streaks in over 86,000 satellite images taken by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The team also turned to other cameras orbiting Mars by the European Space Agency’s Trace Gas Orbiter as well as MRO’s super-powerful High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment.
That Mars-orbiting gear has helped monitor how the streaks evolved over time.
Multiple triggering events
Writing in a just-issued research paper, the scientists concluded that dry processes – rather than liquid flow – drive the appearance of streaked slopes on Mars. They found that these winding features most likely form when layers of fine dust suddenly slide off steep terrain.
Global distribution of slope streaks and RSL on Mars.
Image credit: Valentin Tertius Bickel/Adomas Valantinas
There are multiple triggering events that could unleash this process, such as rocks falling, small meteoroid impacts or wind gusts causing shockwaves and shaking loose dust.
Dry drivers
“Overall, our observations suggest that slope streak and RSL formation may be predominantly controlled by two independent, dry drivers,” the paper explains: 1) the seasonal delivery of dust onto topographic inclines, and 2) the spontaneous activation of accumulated dust by energetic triggers – wind and impacts for slope streaks, as well as dust devils and rockfalls for RSL.
“This implies that slope streak and RSL locations are not likely to be habitable, alleviating strict planetary protection measures for future landed missions to those regions,” the research paper concludes.
For more details, take a look at “Streaks on martian slopes are dry” in Nature Communications at:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-59395-w
Visualization of the deep learning-driven mapping workflow.
Image credit: Valentin Tertius Bickel/Adomas Valantinas
Image credit: ispace
Next stop, the Moon!
On June 5, 2025 Japan’s ispace Resilience lunar lander is set to plop down near the center of Mare Frigoris (Sea of Cold)!
Image credit: ispace
“Should conditions change, there are three alternative landing sites that are being considered with different landing dates and times for each,” an ispace posting explains.
Meanwhile, a newly-released image taken with the spot camera mounted on top of the lander. The cover that protects the Tenacious micro rover is visible in the bottom right of the image.
Image credit: ispace
Image credit: ispace
Image credit: NASA
The White House released fiscal year 2026 budget proposal for NASA calls for nearly 25 percent less in funding than NASA received for fiscal year 2025.
Image credit: White House
The release on May 2 of that budget proposes significant changes to NASA’s crewed lunar plans, presence on the International Space Station, and science missions, among other changes.
Budget implications
Image credit: CSIS/Inside Outer Space screengrab
The implications of the budget took center stage in a highly-informative discussion at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
Image credit: CSIS/Inside Outer Space screengrab
This NASA Budget Outlook Discussion took place on May 14 involving Clayton Swope, Deputy Director of the CSIS Aerospace Security Project; Alexander MacDonald. Senior Associate (Non-resident) at the Aerospace Security Project; and Mike French, Founder of the Space Policy Group.
Image credit: CSIS/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Image credit: CSIS/Inside Outer Space screengrab
This important event at CSIS is available for viewing at:
https://www.csis.org/events/nasa-budget-outlook-discussion
Creating a cis-lunar economy will take time, hardware, and political willingness to forge a link between the moon and Earth.
(Image credit: Lockheed Martin)
Cashing in on a cis-lunar economy is ballyhooed by space exploration advocates.
It’s a spillover term stirred up by today’s entourage of moon orbiters and investigative landers that are crossing the great divide of space between the Earth and moon.
But what needs to happen to help spark a cis-lunar economy? More yet, given actions of late, are we headed for entering a tariff-free zone?
Finding: There’s hard work ahead to put in place the needed hardware to sustain and define such a dollar-generating idea.
Taking the “Aquarius Regolith Run,” a Lockheed Martin video game demo showcased at the Space Symposium. But watch out for those crater rims!
Image credit: Barbara David
It turns out that power and day/night operations on the moon – that is, “plug-in and play” lunar equipment — stands out as a must-have if a cis-lunar economy is real not empty oratory.
For more information, go to my new Space.com story – “Can we actually build a thriving economy on and around the moon?” – “I don’t see an inner solar system in which we don’t significantly develop the moon if you’re going to go anywhere.”
https://www.space.com/astronomy/moon/can-we-actually-build-a-thriving-economy-on-and-around-the-moon
