Archive for the ‘Space News’ Category
Author: 
August 2nd, 2026
Meet the Neighbors – Life on Mars and How to Find It by Steven A. Benner; Allen Lane, (an imprint of Penguin Books); July 2026; 416 pages (Hardcover); $40.99 (Amazon).
Talk about a “cold case” – nothing like dealing with life on Mars where the temperature can drop like a rock to roughly – 89°C at night. But that’s just one factor when thinking about is or isn’t there life on Mars today.
Twin NASA spacecraft Mars missions were launched in the 1970’s: a Viking 1 lander planted its legs on the terrain of Chryse Planitia on July 20, 1976, with the Viking 2 lander touching down months later at Utopia Planitia on September 3. Both asked a key question: Is there life on Mars?
Among their duties, the dual landers scooped up the first soil samples of Mars and deposited those precious collectibles into onboard, specialized equipment. To answer their query about life on the Red Planet, Viking scientists had tightly boxed up their cares and woes and sent that science gear to probe that issue.
Here’s the Red Planet rub. After interpreting all the Viking mission call backs: a majority consensus of scientists at the time was that Viking relayed a “no life on Mars” result.
However, is it possible that the two robots actually radioed back a very clear comeback: “Can you repeat the question?’’
Thought provoking chapters
Steven A. Benner is a chemist, synthetic biologist, paleogenetist, and astrobiologist – and author of this exemplary tale and head spinning volume.
You must read this book – a trite saying, but important to emphasize that point to space groupies, chemists, biologists, geologists, historians, philosophers, and scientific soothsayers.
There are those that might get bogged down in a chapter. No worries, Benner adds, skip to the next. Each chapter comes with a bullet point list of conclusions.
The book supplies witty and wonderful thought-provoking chapters, such as: “Our Place in the Cosmos,” “How ‘Yes Life’ Became ‘No Life’”; “Seeking Extant Martian Life Remained . . .Low Priority”; “The Motivational Logic of Exploration” to “The Origins of Life. A Solution”; “How Martian Life Might Survive” and the clarion chapter call “Astrobiologists of the World, Unite!”
In the past, missions to Mars might “follow the water.” They might assess “habitability.” They might even look for signs of ancient Martian life, says Brenner.
But now missions to seek extant life on Mars have been off the table. What’s going wrong here?
Image credit: Meet the Neighbors/Benner
Big questions
Importantly, this book also tells another story generated from Viking. It illustrates how actual scientists manage research that addresses “big questions.”
“For Viking, anomalous results that might have led to a back-and-forth discussion to correct mistakes in interpretations were rationalized away,” the author suggests. Benner provides examples of how fact and logic can prove less important than “culture” in a community of scientists.
Benner writes that the results of the Viking mission can all be explained by bacterial autotrophs that respire with stored oxygen on Mars (BARSOOMS). BARSOOM is the acronym for a Bacterial Autotrophthat Respires using Stored Oxygen.
“It is hard to not be enthusiastic about the results delivered by the Viking landers,” Benner writes. “Yes, with more money and more payload, more experiments could have been done. The conclusions might have been made more secure. But to repurpose a lyric from Meat Loaf, three out of three ain’t bad.”
Benner writes: “You might think therefore that the community would have changed its consensus opinion. You might think that the community would have had a collective Aha! moment. You might think that the search for extant life on Mars would be back on the table. You would be wrong,” he explains.
Propositions
Yes, science is hard, explains Benner, “especially for ape descendants.” Still, advocacy has a logic. “For extant Martian life, we can break that logic into propositions that we can examine individually,” the author suggests.
— Life arose on Mars
— Life survived on Mars
— We know how to identify any extant life that we will encounter on Mars
— We know where to access places on Mars where any extant life survives
From Benner there’s a call to action: “Astrobiologists of the world, unite! Do risky things. Seek to answer big questions. You have nothing to lose, and a world (Mars) to win.”
For more information on this landmark book, go to:
https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/477954/meet-the-neighbors-by-benner-steven-a/9780241808306
Posted in 
Lunar south pole.
Image credit: CGTN/Inside Outer Space screengrab
What’s shaking about water ice deposits on the Moon?
Turns out that assessing how seismic waves propagate on the Moon could be used to locate and map ice buried beneath the lunar surface.
A new study by geologists at the University of Maryland (UMD), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of Hawaii shows that seismic waves—the same kind of vibrations measured during earthquakes here on our planet — could be used to pick up the seismic signature of lunar ice.
The team’s findings have been published in the journal Science Advances on July 31.
Live off the land
“It’s crucial to identify any materials on the Moon that an astronaut can make use of while they’re up there,” said Nicholas Schmerr, an associate professor in UMD’s Department of Geological, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences and a co-author of the study.
“Since they will be limited by the few resources they brought from Earth,” Schmerr explains, “anything they find on the Moon will help them basically live off the land, especially for longer-term missions or outposts.”
Image credit: NASA
Frozen shadows
Water ice hidden in the deep, frozen shadows of lunar polar craters may well be one of the most valuable resources an astronaut can find.
Ice can become drinking water, split apart with electricity to yield oxygen to breathe and hydrogen for rocket propellant.
So finding quantities of water ice could radically reduce what future missions need to haul from Earth.
But there’s a glitch
Presently, no one knows for sure how much ice is on the Moon, where it is, and in what condition it is for extraction and processing.
“The idea behind the team’s work was straightforward: frozen soil and dry soil behave very differently when a seismic wave passes through them,” states a UMD press statement. “Ice stiffens whatever it’s mixed into, making vibrations travel two to three times faster than they would through dry dirt. Ice-rich zones can also cause seismic energy to bounce back rather than pass through, much like how sounds can echo off a wall.”
Image credit: NASA
Schmerr added that a well-placed seismometer on the Moon would be able to detect these effects. “We can use seismic waves to not just see whether ice is present but also roughly how much of it there is,” he stated.
Testing, testing, testing
To test their idea, the researchers took three approaches.
Harrison Lisabeth, a rock physicist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, who led the research, froze a volcanic rock from Arizona that when crushed, closely mimics lunar dust.
Using X-rays, researchers studied how ice settles into tiny gaps between soil grains.
Co-author Matthew Siegler from the University of Hawaii modeled detailed temperature maps of the Moon’s south polar region, identifying which craters stayed cold enough to preserve ice for billions of years.
At UMD, Schmerr ran computer simulations of small moonquakes rippling through and interacting with underground lunar ice.
The result?
In every case, the ice left clear and measurable marks on the seismic data.
Chang’e-7.
Image credit: CCTV/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Predictions
As noted in the UMD press statement, the research team won’t have to wait long to put their predictions to the test.
China’s Chang’e-7 mission, expected to be launched later this month, is equipped with a seismograph to study moonquakes and probe the lunar interior.
The robotic lander is targeted to land near Shackleton Crater in late 2026. At that location, numerous suspected ice deposits are present.
Additionally, NASA’s Artemis astronauts will potentially deploy the Lunar Environmental Monitoring Station, an instrument UMD’s Schmerr helped develop for seismic exploration.
“Our findings are laying the groundwork for an observation we’ll get in the next couple of years,” Schmerr said. “No one has physically measured the ice on the moon yet, but we now have a prediction for what to look out for. That’s an important first step.”
To gain access to the research paper — “The seismic signature of lunar ice” – go to:
Image credit: Vermeer Corporation/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Dig this!
An expansion of a partnership is expected to help establish a Moon Base by delivering autonomous mobility and heavy-duty excavation tools for a permanent settlement on the lunar surface.
Interlune, a Seattle-based group, and the Vermeer Corporation of Pella, Iowa, have detailed the plan for development and delivery of subscale prototypes of lunar soil processing technology.
Develop, test, deliver
Interlune and Vermeer plan to develop, test, and deliver a mission-ready lunar site-preparation tool by 2028, aligning their efforts with NASA’s recently announced Moon Base program plan.
The Vermeer Corporation is a world-class (and soon to be, off-world) leader in industrial equipment manufacturing.
That preparation tool is to be developed and integrated with a lunar rover. It is to be trial-run first on Earth and then on the Moon “to validate its ability to prepare and stabilize the lunar surface for sustained operations,” states Interlune.
A full-scale prototype of the Interlune excavator developed in partnership with Vermeer in 2025. Testing as shown was done with auxiliary components.
Image credit: Interlune
Scalable systems
“By working with Vermeer, we are moving from developing prototypes to repeatable, scalable systems that will help build the Moon Base and enable the harvesting of lunar resources to power the future,” said Rob Meyerson, co-founder and CEO of Interlune.
The expanded collaboration between the two firms builds on a joint development agreement that led to the full-scale prototype of the Interlune excavator, which was unveiled in May 2025.
Helium-3 harvesting
Along with Moon Base work, central to Interlune’s mission is harvesting natural resources in space, starting with helium-3 and also including hydrogen, oxygen, metals, rare earth elements, and water.
Since its founding in 2021, Interlune has secured nearly $500 million in binding helium-3 purchase agreements from government and commercial customers.
Artwork of harvester of hellium-3 on the Moon.
Image credit: Interlune
Interlune has also raised $23 million in venture capital and secured more than $18 million in non-dilutive U.S. government research funding.
Earlier this month, Interlune announced that its Cold Capture technology has demonstrated production of 99% pure helium-3 from Grade A helium. Cold Capture was developed with support from the U.S. Air Force and addresses immediate demand for helium-3 while validating core technology for harvesting on the Moon, Interlune explains.
Job site: the Moon
For its part, Vermeer brings to the table nearly 80 years of tackling complex civil engineering challenges on Earth.
“We are now ready to apply that expertise to the most demanding job site in history: the Moon,” says Jason Andringa, President and CEO of Vermeer Corporation, who also serves on the Interlune Advisory Board.
“We are fully committed to working with Interlune, NASA, and others to deliver the essential infrastructure required for the Moon Base,” Andringa adds.
Image credit: NASA
To view an informative Vermeer video – “Out of this world partnership: Vermeer x Interlune” – go to:
Time evolution of the target ejecta column density, rendered on the lunar surface
at the predicted impact site near Einstein crater.
Image credit: William Jo, et al.
Next week, Earth’s moon is due for a human-made, high-speed thumping of an identified flying object – a spent SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage. The event is a literal “dust up” on the lunar landscape.
That Falcon 9 upper stage is a leftover from the launch that sent Firefly’s Blue Ghost-1 lander to the moon on Jan. 15, 2025. Also sent moonward on that flight was the Hakuto-R Mission 2, called Resilience, a robotic lunar lander developed by the Japanese company ispace.
Unknown, unknowns
This head-on collision on August 5 of the errant stage is expected to occur near Einstein/Bell Craters near the lunar limb. It may well be visible by ground and space-based assets. Indeed, putting aside all the unknown unknowns, and modeling uncertainties, some specialists suggest if you’ve got the time and observational prowess, it might be worth a look.
A big bruiser of a rocket stage. SpaceX photo of one of the company’s Falcon 9 second stages, taken in 2022. A similar second stage is expected to impact the moon in August 2026.
Image credit: SpaceX
According to a new study by an international team, their results found that moongazers with sufficiently sensitive telescopes will find that the resulting impact plume may briefly be bright enough to see against the dark sky near the moon’s edge.
For more details, go to my new Space.com story – “A SpaceX rocket will crash into the moon next week, and scientists aren’t sure what to expect” – at:
Image credit: NIAC
If you have a dim view of the future, take a look at a new batch of NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program awards – all 18 of them
But heads up – one of the bright idea awardees is suggesting how best to dim the Sun using a controllable dust cloud to reduce solar insolation – the amount of solar radiation hitting a specific area over a defined time.
The idea comes from Saptarshi Bandyopadhyay of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The “DimSun” proposal stems from earlier research that was focused on “geoengineering” and use of space-based solar radiation management.
Image credit: Saptarshi Bandyopadhyay/NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Along with DimSun, the selections for 2026 NIAC Phase 1 grants cover a wide swatch of ultra-novel ideas, from use of solar sails, subsurface moon exploration and sampling planetary rings to ways to chart alien continents and radioisotope-aided EVA’s in nighttime conditions.
Here’s the list
Combinatory Architecture offering Neomobility, on-Venus Adaptability, and Survivability (CANVAS)
Extended Astronaut Radioisotope-EVA in Nighttime and Deep-space Icy Landscapes (EARENDIL)
Graphic depiction of the Extended Astronaut Radioisotope-EVA in Nighttime and Deep-space Icy Landscapes (EARENDIL) concept.
Image credit: A.C. Charania
Transforming Submillimeter Space Interferometry with Photonic Technologies
Coilable Stacked Solar Sails for Very High delta-V Missions
Solid-state Propulsion for Autonomous Reconnaissance of Karst (SPARK)
Power-over-Fiber to Enable a Lunar Underground eXplorer (LUX)
Quantum Wind Lidar Applications for Planetary and Earth Science Missions
OBLIVIAN: Observing Black hole LIght Via Intensity cOrrelatioN (OBLIVIAN)
Plasmon-Enhanced Radioisotope Thermophotovoltaic (PRTPV) Power Generation for Interstellar Missions
Efficient variable Conductivity Lunar Insulator for Passive Surveyor Environmental Control (ECLIPSE)
Graphic depiction of theLunar Underground eXplorer (LUX) mission concept.
Image credit: Gilly Elor/Stone Aerospace, Inc.
PRAXIS: Planetary Rings Autonomous EXploration with In-situ Sampling (PRAXIS)
Actively Steerable Femtosat Constellations for In-situ Exploration of Saturn’s Rings, Atmosphere, and Magnetosphere
Photophoretic Tracers for Near-Space Remote Sensing at 30-100 km Altitudes
Robotically Assembled Electromagnetic Metamaterials for Long-Range Space Situational Awareness
Interworld Slingshot Resource Surveys
Mapping Alien Continents: Achieving Optical VLBI for Exoplanet Imaging
Precision Astrometry Using Optically Independent Spacecraft for Gravitational Wave Detection
Early-stage concept development
Graphic depiction of photophoretic tracers deployed from a stratospheric balloon and tracked by satellite-based lidar. Their trajectories are analyzed to determine atmospheric properties like wind speed, temperature, and pressure in real time at 30-100 km altitudes.
Image credit:Benjamin Schafer/Rarefied Technologies, Inc.
The 18 NIAC Phase I awards total $3.2 million.
Each award provides up to $175,000 for a nine-month initial investigation.
While the NIAC projects are about early-stage concept development and are not considered official NASA missions, how many of these ideas will stir the creative juices to become true renaissance reality?
To take in what’s on the agenda for the space future go to this NIAC website at:
https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-awards-2026-innovative-technology-concepts/
Image credit: Elizabeth A. Silber et al 2026 Res. Notes AAS 10 183
It came from outer space, exploding high above the South Atlantic off the coast of Argentina.
That incoming meteor — also termed as a bolide — was observed by a pair of civilian lightning imagers aboard geostationary weather satellites, thereby supplementing the use of space-based military surveillance satellites.
The April 1 event was viewed by the U.S. GOES-E and Europe’s Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) Imager-1 satellite. The event was well-observed from geostationary orbit by two lightning imagers onboard those two independent spacecraft.
First use
Viewed as the first use of stereo detections from two different lightning imagers, researchers were able to derive a three-dimensional trajectory and velocity estimate for the fireball.
Hovering in a fixed position 36,000 km above the equator, the Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) mission is designed to deliver a rapid stream of data for enhanced weather forecasting. Its Lightning Imager offers a completely new capability for European meteorological satellites.
Image credit: ESA/Mlabspace
In addition, US government sensors also detected the high-velocity fireball whose brightness peaked at an altitude of nearly 60 miles (90.5 kilometers) over the South Atlantic.
Stereoscopic triangulation of the imager tracks from the lightning imagers yielded an independent pre-atmospheric velocity of the fireball, pegged at 18% below the U.S. government-reported value.
Radiated energy and entry speed
That lightning imager data was duly catalogued in NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) fireball database.
“The data passed to CNEOS about such events includes a measurement of total radiated energy and of the estimated entry speed,” said Juan Luis Cano of the European Space Agency’s Planetary Defense team and co-author of a new paper on the event published in the Research Notes of the American Astronomical Society.
The research paper is led by Elizabeth Silber of the U.S. Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico.
Artist’s rendering of NOAA’s GOES East satellite in orbit. Among duties, the spacecraft provides real-time mapping of lightning activity.
Image credit: NOAA
“The Lightning Imager on MTG-I1 and its US counterpart detect millions of lightning flashes from their approximately 36, 000 kilometer altitude on the equator on a daily basis,” notes Juan Luis. “But not all the flashes they see come from lightning.”
Distinct signatures
Juan Luis noted in an ESA statement that researchers looking over the data found that fireball detonations have their own distinct signatures, possessing clear linear paths and a gradual increase in intensity before fading away, unlike the fixed points of lightning flashes.
“So we have been investigating methods to routinely separate out fireballs from lightning,” Juan Luis said, “to build a global inventory of these events in support of our knowledge of the very small-object population in near-Earth space for planetary defense.”
To access the research paper – “Multi-sensor Observations of a High-velocity Fireball over the South Atlantic on 2026 April 1” – go to:
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2515-5172/ae853e
Also, to access the Bolide Detections from Geostationary Lightning Mapper website, go to:
https://neo-bolide.ndc.nasa.gov/#/
This research has made use of the neo-bolide.ndc.nasa.gov website, which was developed and operated by NASA’s Asteroid Threat Assessment Project thanks to funding from NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office.
SpaceX rocket stage.
(Image credit: SpaceX via Project Pluto)
That impending smash hit on the Moon next month of a SpaceX rocket stage has been reviewed by an international research team.
The researchers put to question whether observers on Earth will see anything. Also, will the impact loft a sunlit plume and if so, how much lunar material will be purged, how high could that plume reach, and just how bright the plume may be?
William Jo is a graduate research assistant at University of Texas, Austin that led the analysis.
Last week, they submitted their findings to Geophysical Research Letters and a preprint is just out on arXiv: “Predicted Ejecta Dynamics and Observability of the 2026 Falcon 9 Upper Stage Lunar Impact.”
Time evolution of the target ejecta column density, rendered on the lunar surface
at the predicted impact site near Einstein crater.
Image credit: William Jo, et al.
Visible ejecta spike
Using a special shock-physics hydrocode to simulate the impact, among other tools, here’s what Jo and colleagues found.
“We predict the debris plume from the Aug. 5 impact will have the central ejecta spike reaching roughly 75 kilometers to 100 kilometers altitude,” Jo told Inside Outer Space. The curtain of the debris is roughly 15 kilometers to 20 kilometers, and would spread 183 kilometers laterally near the sunlit limb of the Moon.
“Our calculations suggest the plume should be several orders of magnitude brighter than the dark-sky background for the first few minutes after impact,” Jo advised. “So the plume should be visible, though I’d stress this is a single nominal case. The real one will look different, and the numbers are on the optimistic side. But the point worth making is that the flash isn’t really the story here.”
Rare chance
Jo said that a spent rocket stage is a hollow, spacecraft-like body, and there are very few impact models for objects (human-made) like it. They seem to produce very different plumes than “natural impactors,” like asteroids or comets do.
Artwork depicts a small but powerful meteor strike on the Moon.
Image credit: Steve Roy, NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center
“Watching this one gives us a rare chance to open up ejecta-plume science and calibrate those models against a real event, which matters for every future thing we deliver to the Moon,” added Jo. “My concern is that most observers will stop at the sub-second flash and never track down the ejecta, which is the part that should actually be visible, and where the science is.”
As the research paper explains: “Our results predict the size, shape, and brightness of the plume over time, so that astronomers with sufficiently sensitive telescopes will know where to point and what to expect upon observation. We find that the plume may briefly be bright enough to see against the dark sky near the Moon’s edge.”
To access the research paper — “Predicted Ejecta Dynamics and Observability of the 2026 Falcon 9 Upper Stage Lunar Impact” – go to:
Image credit: Africa2Moon Project
More bounce to the ounce!
To be flown on China’s Chang’e-8 moon lander mission in 2029 is Africa’s first space exploration mission.
Under the Africa2Moon venture, the Bounced African Low Lunar Sphere, or BALLS for short, is a technology demonstrator in which a trio of antennas will constitute a radio astronomy array at the moon’s south pole region.
“If this is successful, it will ignite the reality of space on the African continent.”
For more details, go to my new Space.com story – “BALLS on the moon: China set to launch Africa’s 1st lunar science mission in 2029
Image credit: SpaceX/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Last week, the SpaceX Starship lifted off from Starbase, Texas on its thirteenth flight test.
This was the second flight of the Starship and Super Heavy V3 vehicles and the first Starship flight to deploy the next generation Starlink V3 satellites.
Super Heavy
In overview status, SpaceX has posted this statement regarding the Friday, July 24th flight test #13 of the Starship program:
Image credit; SpaceX
The flight test began with Super Heavy igniting all 33 Raptor 3 engines and ascending over the Gulf of America. The successful first-stage ascent was followed by a hot-staging maneuver, with Starship’s upper stage igniting its six Raptor engines to continue its flight to space.
Following stage separation, the Super Heavy booster performed a directional flip maneuver.
Image credit: SpaceX/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Hard splashdown
The startup sequence was modified for this flight to be more robust to timing variability in engine startup and flip in the desired direction, which is done to increase overall performance.
The booster successfully completed the high thrust portion of the boostback burn with all 33 engines, the first time with a Super Heavy V3, before ending the burn early. It attempted to relight its engines for the landing burn, with a subset successfully igniting before experiencing a hard splashdown in the Gulf.
Starship in free flight. Image credit: SpaceX
Starlink satellite deployment
After completing a full-duration ascent burn on all six Raptor engines, Starship achieved its planned velocity and trajectory.
Starship then successfully deployed all 20 Starlink V3 satellites. SpaceX engineers were able to successfully communicate with every satellite using radio frequency and laser links and downloaded key telemetry from the satellites.
The Starlink satellites were deployed on the pre-planned trajectory and are expected to have demised upon reentry approximately 20 minutes after deployment.
Image credit: SpaceX/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Critical views
The vehicle also reignited a single Raptor engine in an in-space demonstration of a core capability for future orbital missions.
Starship re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere and was able to gather critical data on the performance of its heatshield before executing a dynamic banking move to mimic the trajectory that future missions returning to Starbase will fly.
Starship then guided itself using its four flaps to the pre-planned splashdown zone in the Indian Ocean.
After relighting all three Raptor engines, Starship executed a landing flip, landing burn, and soft splashdown, coming to rest intact in the Indian Ocean and providing critical views of an intact heatshield for the first time.
Image credit: SpaceX/Inside Outer Space screengrab
For a replay of the flight, go to:
https://www.spacex.com/launches/starship-flight-13
Image credit: Mars Guy/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Mars Guy takes a look at NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover. Its dust removal tool does the unexpected is discussed. So too is a look at the rover’s wheels.
“Curiosity doesn’t have an abrading tool like Perseverance [Mars rover] uses to expose fresh rock surfaces. Instead, it uses a wire brush with a now twisted bundle of wires that sometimes makes tiny holes. But last week, Curiosity somehow managed to make a hole more like one from Perseverance,” notes Mars Guy.
Image credit: JPL-Caltech/Inside Outer Space screengrab
Mars Guy also explores how Curiosity maneuvers through challenging terrain in Gale Crater as the rover approaches its 14th year on Mars.
The segment examines the rover’s ongoing wheel wear issues and compares its maintenance tools with those used by the Perseverance mission while inspecting recent geological findings.
Go to this video at:
https://youtu.be/HCeKe-BsvQ4?si=_hr3f96vsY7-7eGF
Image credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
