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That photo of China’s Chang’e-6 far side lunar lander/ascender came courtesy of a tiny, 11-pound (5 kilograms) mini robot rover.

The device was powered by autonomous piloting and artificial intelligence (AI) camera technology.

Once detached from the Chang’e-6 lander, the small rover moved to an optimal position and using onboard artificial intelligence and neural networks, it composed and captured the third-person view of the Moon scene without human input.

Best angle and composition

The mini-rover moved to a relatively suitable location for taking pictures, then intelligently choose the best angle and composition, “leaving some precious memories for the Chang’e-6 mission,” said Xing Yan, staff member of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC).

“We are enhancing its autonomy with AI technology, and we’re still using neural networks. We give full play to neural networks’ ability to learn from human experience, and it can achieve many things that cannot be achieved with traditional methods, such as adjusting the angle of the photo,” Xing told China Central Television (CCTV).

“This also verifies the feasibility of this AI technology based on neural networks under the constraints of limited computing resources on the lunar surface,” said Xing.

Now 55 years ago, Apollo 11’s “flag raising” of Old Glory on the ancient lunar surface took all of 10 minutes during Neil Armstrong’s and Buzz Aldrin’s two-and-a-half hour moonwalking adventure in July 1969.

But that seminal event in “vexillological” history was not without a lot of debate, discussion and early worries that were run up the policy flagpole about “who owns the Moon?” The term vexillology is the study of the history, symbolism and usage of flags.

In the early 1990s, Anne Platoff, then working with Hernandez Engineering Inc. in Houston, Texas put together a NASA contractor report titled, Where No Flag Has Gone Before: Political and Technical Aspects of Placing a Flag on the Moon.

For more details, go to my new story on Space.com – “What became of the flags Apollo astronauts left on the moon?” – at:

https://www.space.com/apollo-program-flags-moon

It is a classic wait-a-minute Moon moment.

The message from NASA last week: “NASA Ends VIPER Project, Continues Moon Exploration.”

The space agency’s Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) project had undergone a comprehensive internal review. NASA found price tag sticker shock, delays to the launch date, and risk of future cost growth – reasons to “stand down” the lunar ice-hound mission. 

Some disassembly required

At this point in time, NASA had put in $450 million into VIPER.

NASA said it’s planning to disassemble and reuse VIPER’s instruments and components for future Moon missions.

 

Prior to disassembly, NASA’s open to expressions of interest from U.S. industry and international partners for use of the existing VIPER rover system at no cost to the government.

The VIPER project will conduct an “orderly close out through spring 2025,” said NASA.

 

Dead meat, dead weight

Under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) public-private partnership, VIPER was headed for Earth departure via an Astrobotic Griffin Moon lander.

But the Astrobotic firm is trying to overcome its own problems that have pushed Griffin’s readiness for flight to September 2025.

The landing without VIPER onboard “will provide a flight demonstration of the Griffin lander and its engines,” NASA stated. In VIPER’s absence, a “mass simulator” will be used to mimic the weight of the missing NASA rover.

Rocky start to smooth sailing

To start with, it has not been smooth sailing for Astrobotic.

In January of this year, the Astrobotic Peregrine Mission One to the Moon failed due to an in-space propulsion glitch.

A mishap review investigation of why the private company’s first Moon lander failed is forthcoming, Astrobotic told Inside Outer Space.

“Continuation of VIPER would result in an increased cost that threatens cancellation or disruption to other CLPS missions,” the space agency statement explains. “NASA has notified Congress of the agency’s intent.”

Nicola Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, added in a statement:

“The agency has an array of missions planned to look for ice and other resources on the Moon over the next five years.”

Ceding leadership

“VIPER is 100% built and has completed part of its testing. It is ready to go and NASA is junking a very capable rover and ceding leadership in resource exploration,” said Clive Neal, a leading Moon scientist at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.

“It is a dark day for lunar science and exploration and maybe the Artemis program,” Neal told Inside Outer Space. “I am still in shock at the reasoning used to justify the cancellation of VIPER.”

Norbert Schörghofer, a senior scientist for the Planetary Science Institute, has a research focus on studying water ice in the polar regions of the Moon.

Schörghofer calls identifying the abundance and distribution of water ice in the lunar polar regions “a science and exploration priority.”

“The cancellation of VIPER is a major loss for science,” Schörghofer told Inside Outer Space. “No other robotic US mission to the Moon in the next three years has the needed capabilities. Required are mobility and a way to explore the subsurface, not just the surface.”

Ground-truth

The ground-truth hunt for lunar water ice, Schörghofer added, will likely be made by Japan’s Lunar Polar Exploration (LUPEX) project now underway with India, projected to be launched in 2025. Observation equipment from NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) will also be installed on the LUPEX rover.

Or perhaps the needed detective work on lunar water ice, Schörghofer said, could be carried out by China’s robotic lander, Chang’e-7 in 2026.

“A crewed mission to the south polar region could achieve the goal, but who is to say it will fly as scheduled,” Schörghofer said.

“If one is serious about finding ice on the Moon, we also need a mission that can explore large permanently cold and dark craters, which even VIPER and [NASA’s crewed] Artemis 3 will not be able to reach. And that appears to be even further off in the future,” Schörghofer said.

Devastating news

The intended termination of VIPER is devastating news said Benjamin Greenhagen, chair of the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group (LEAG).

Since 2004, LEAG supports NASA in providing analysis of scientific, technical, commercial, and operational issues in support of lunar exploration goals.

“The LEAG community has long supported VIPER and Resource Prospector before it,” Greenhagen advised his Moon exploration colleagues via the community posting website, Lunar-L. “We believe in this mission and the unique value that it brings for lunar exploration that will be lost if VIPER does not fly.”

Uncertain situation

Beyond the hardware, Greenhagen said that “VIPER is people and there should be significant concern for the engineers and scientists working to test and fly the completed rover given the uncertain situation. Please keep the VIPER team in mind.”

Greenhagen posted that “LEAG will be working to bring that message to NASA in the coming weeks and I expect there will be other individual- and community-organized efforts as well.”

One such action has already begun.

In light of the news of NASA’s decision to cancel the VIPER mission, space scientists have put together a sign-on-the-dotted line support letter to be sent to members of the U.S. Congress urging them to reconsider the decision.

Opposing NASA’s termination

In an open letter to Congress, the communiqué asks lawmakers to refuse NASA’s cancellation of the VIPER Moon mission.

That open letter already has over 140 signatures from more than 24 states in the United States. Plans are underway to reach out directly to the House and Senate Committees addressed in the letter, asking them to oppose NASA’s termination of VIPER.

“We are deeply concerned by NASA’s shocking announcement on July 17 that it intends to discontinue the VIPER lunar rover mission,” the letter states. “VIPER was to be a groundbreaking American project and the first NASA mission to characterize the origin and distribution of water ice on and below the surface of the Moon, a key step in enabling human exploration…”

Unprecedented, indefensible

The open letter points out that the decision to cancel the mission “was taken by NASA without giving the wider VIPER team or lunar exploration community an opportunity to propose cost-saving solutions or alternatives to the dismemberment or scrapping of the rover.”

The VIPER rover is already fully built, the letter notes, and was scheduled to undergo final testing in the coming months prior to launch in 2024-2025.

“The decision to cancel the project at this stage, after spending $450 million,” the letter argues, “is both unprecedented and indefensible.”

Go to the NASA VIPER cancellation statement at:

https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-ends-viper-project-continues-moon-exploration/

 

To gain insight on how the Soviet Union built moon-bound gear, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) carried out a covert spy job on a Soviet exhibit in 1959.

A CIA action team dismantled a “Lunik 2” exhibit to document what techniques and technologies were used by the Soviet Union.

 

Stealthy spy operation

Years later, that secretive act was detailed by the CIA and ballyhooed as a stealthy spy operation that was done unbeknownst to the Soviet Union.

The unusual overnight caper by the CIA involved Soviet upper stage space hardware that was being toted around as part of an exhibition to promote Soviet industrial and economic achievements.

For more details, go to my new Space.com story – “How the CIA ‘kidnapped’ a Soviet moon probe during the space race” – at:

https://www.space.com/how-the-cia-kidnapped-a-soviet-moon-probe-during-the-space-race

Call it the UN “stamps of approval” to commemorate July 20, 2024 as International Moon Day.

The United Nations Postal Administration (UNPA) is issuing six postage stamps and three souvenir sheets to commemorate this day, saluting America’s Apollo 11 landing on the Moon on July 20, 1969.

“Following the birth of space exploration nearly 70 years ago, the Moon quickly became the ultimate destination for countless scientific missions, including crewed flights that brought the first human footprints to another place in the universe. Many national space agencies and corporate entities have ambitious plans to reach and explore the Moon,” the UNPA notes in a press statement.

The way forward

In its resolution on “International cooperation in the peaceful uses of outer space” in 2021, the United Nations General Assembly declared International Moon Day, to be observed annually on July 20.

“Today’s Moon exploration is wreathed with ambitious plans, but the expansion of our so-far pristine horizons must take place sustainably,” explains Aarti Holla-Maini, Director of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs. “The United Nations will leverage its unique convening power to foster the necessary dialogue on the way forward.”

For more information on available stamps and souvenir sheets, go to:

https://unstamps.org/shop/international-moon-day/

NASA has requested SPACEX to carry out a month-long “Special Study for Emergency Response,” a contract valued at $266,678.00. The work request was signed on July 15 and the work is to be completed by August 15. This action was signed by a procurement officer at Kennedy Space Center.

There has been speculation that the SpaceX requested study is related to the Boeing Starliner woes and return of crew members Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams back to Earth via the technically challenged Starliner.

Contingency event

However, in response to an Inside Outer Space inquiry, this statement:

“NASA continuously explores a wide range of contingency options with our partners to ensure crew safety aboard the International Space Station. Over the past couple of years, the agency has worked with its commercial partner SpaceX to provide additional return capability on the Dragon spacecraft in the event of a contingency. This is not related to Starliner.”

Hot firings at White Sands

Meanwhile, back on Earth, Starliner thruster ground testing has been completed and data reviews are underway.

In a Boeing statement, ground testing of a Starliner Reaction Control System (RCS) thruster at NASA’s White Sands Test Facility in Las Cruces, New Mexico is complete, and teams are now turning their attention to data reviews.

“The test objective was to observe thruster degradation so teams could get a better understanding of why some thrusters were deselected in-flight and what, if any impacts, returning those thrusters to service could have on the remainder of the Crew Flight Test (CFT).”

Readiness reviews

According to Dan Niedermaier, the lead Boeing engineer for the thruster testing: “We decided to run additional profiles with longer and more frequent pulses to see if we could more closely simulate the higher thermal conditions the thrusters experienced in-flight.”

The team was able to replicate the thrust degradation on the ground, the Boeing update added.

“Boeing and NASA engineers will proceed with thruster disassembly and inspections, and move forward with finalizing flight rationale in support of readiness reviews for Starliner’s nominal return to Earth with commander Butch Wilmore and pilot Suni Williams in the coming weeks,” according to the update from Boeing.

 

While NASA has cancelled its VIPER lunar rover, the private group, Intuitive Machines, has finalized a landing site for its “sold-out” IM-2 lunar prospecting mission.

Still on track for a launch later this year, the IM-2 mission is designed to prospect for water ice and other volatiles on the Moon’s south pole, an effort backed by NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program.

In an Intuitive Machines statement, IM-2’s desired landing site supports the high probability of ice stability within one meter of the lunar surface.

Favorable terrain

Working with NASA, Intuitive Machines selected “favorable terrain” – a roughly 650 feet in diameter (200 meters) elliptical region on the Shackleton Connecting Ridge at the Moon’s south pole.

That landscape also provides a good Earth communications position, along with solar angles for power generation.

To align with the landing site’s solar power conditions, the mission must be timed between November 2024 and January 2025.

“IM-2 is currently planned for late 2024,” and the selection finalized a previously announced pending task order with NASA, according to the Intuitive Machines statement.

YAOKI mini-rover

“A sold-out commercial and civil government mission early in our commercialization roadmap validates our approach to supporting an economy in deep space,” said Intuitive Machines CEO Steve Altemus.

“Our expertise in landing site selection is world-class,” Altemus added, “and we believe the ability to identify landing areas with valuable resources will be essential to the future of the lunar economy.”

One payload onboard IM-2 is small enough to fit in the palm of your hands.

The lunar rover “YAOKI” has been developed by DAMON Co., Ltd., a company led by robot creator Shinichiro Nakajima. The rover is set to join the IM-2 lunar lander’s other experiments as the company’s first Japanese commercial payload.

UPDATE: NASA’s Moon News: VIPER CANCELLED

Go to NASA announcement at:

https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-ends-viper-project-continues-moon-exploration/

“VIPER is 100% built and has completed part of its testing. It is ready to go and NASA is junking a very capable rover and ceding leadership in resource exploration. It is a dark day for lunar science and exploration and maybe the Artemis program,” responds Clive Neal, a lunar exploration expert at the University of Notre Dame.

Posted earlier:

In wait-a-minute style, the Moon exploration community is holding its collective breath for the news stemming from today’s “Exploration Science Program Update” by NASA.

Nobody is quite sure what’s coming, but on the rocket docket is Nicola Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters.

Perhaps a tip on things to come, joining Fox is NASA’s Joel Kearns, deputy associate administrator for exploration, Science Mission Directorate.

Kearns also leads the Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative, the CLPS space agency/private sector activity.

There is some speculation that an update will be given on the status of CLPS, particularly the NASA contracted Astrobotic delivery of the agency’s Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER).

VIPER bite?

VIPER is a key part of NASA’s Artemis lunar exploration plan, a robotic endeavor in search of Moon ice and other potential resources.

Astrobotic is on tap to use its Griffin lunar lander to deliver VIPER to the Moon’s south pole, supposedly by year’s end. But the company experienced a rough-and-tumble start with CLPS.

In January of this year, the Astrobotic Peregrine Mission One to the Moon failed due to an in-space propulsion glitch.

So, perhaps, news on the whereabouts and timing of a VIPER sendoff?

Then, on the other hand, maybe no.

But stay tuned later today for some sort of Moon news.

The existence of lunar lava tube caves, cozy conduits for expeditionary crews below the Moon’s surface has been reported.

Thanks to analysis of NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) radar data, what lies below the Apollo 11 landing site of Mare Tranquillitatis has been detected.

A team of international scientists, under the lead of the University of Trento, Italy, published their research findings in Nature Astronomy.

Radar reflections

“These caves have been theorized for over 50 years, but it is the first time ever that we have demonstrated their existence,” explains Lorenzo Bruzzone, professor at the University of Trento in a press statement.

Bruzzone said that in 2010, as part of the ongoing LRO NASA mission, an onboard Miniature Radio-Frequency (Mini-RF) instrument acquired data that included a pit in Mare Tranquilitatis.

“Years later we have re-analyzed these data with complex signal processing techniques we have recently developed, and have discovered radar reflections from the area of the pit that are best explained by an underground cave conduit,” Bruzzone states. “This discovery provides the first direct evidence of an accessible lava tube under the surface of the Moon.”

Solution to the problem

An upshot of the finding is this downward realization: Cosmic and solar radiation can be as much as 150 times more powerful on the lunar surface than we experience on Earth and there is a steady threat of meteorite impacts.

Lunar conditions topside drive a need to find safe sites for the construction of infrastructure that can support sustained exploration.

“Caves such as this one offer a solution to that problem,” the press statement adds.

The Mini-RF principal investigator, Wes Patterson, from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland points out that this research demonstrates how radar data of the Moon can be used in novel ways.

That data can address fundamental questions for science and exploration, Patterson adds, “and how crucial it is to continue collecting remotely sensed data of the Moon. This includes the current LRO mission and, hopefully, future orbiter missions.”

 

Underground volume

In their paper, Bruzzone and colleagues point out that several potential subsurface openings have been observed on the surface of the Moon.

“However, it remains uncertain whether such pits provide access to cave conduits with extensive underground volumes,” the researchers state.

 

The radar reflections studied can be attributed to a subsurface cave conduit tens of meters long, suggesting an accessible cave conduit beneath the Moon’s surface.

This discovery suggests that the Mare Tranquillitatis pit “is a promising site for a lunar base, as it offers shelter from the harsh surface environment and could support long-term human exploration of the Moon,” the research team concludes.

To gain access to the research paper — “Radar Evidence of an Accessible Cave Conduit below the Mare Tranquillitatis Pit” — go to: 

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-024-02302-y

What happens when you mix an architect with material, electrical, mechanical, aerospace and software specialists – but then blend in a glass blower?

“We are a pioneering space architecture and engineering company at the forefront of shaping the future of interplanetary living,” explains the Skyeports website. “We integrate the principles of robust structural design, advanced materials, and state-of-the-art technologies to ensure the highest level of protection and resilience for our interplanetary structures.”

At Skyeports, the group is diving into innovative use of space composite materials, including advanced glass composites. “Our designs are meticulously crafted to provide a secure and adaptable living environment for our explorers.”

Positive results

Martin Bermudez is the CEO of Skyeports, telling Inside Outer Space that they are currently working on prototyping hardware in vacuum conditions at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. Also being used is a NASA facility to test the behavior of the engineer glass compounds in one-sixth gravity field, like that offered by Earth’s Moon.

“We have already done some computer thermal, fluid, mechanical, and chemical modeling analysis of the types of glass that we intend to use, with very positive results so far,” Bermudez adds.

Simple and challenging

The group applied this past month for a NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program grant. The fingers-crossed hope is to garner early seed funding to further develop the idea, said Bermudez.

That Skyeports idea is very simple and challenging at the same time.

“During our research, we have found out that glass is going to be a major advancement in material science soon,” Bermudez points out. “We’re currently exploring how glass blowing, a traditional technique, could be adapted for use on airless planets and moons.”

While encouraged by their research, there are many challenges ahead. But the concept holds great potential for creating large glass structures using available, local materials found on other worlds.

Plasma furnace

“Our plan involves designing a smart, possibly autonomous microwave plasma furnace on Earth, then deploying it on the Moon,” Bermudez says.

This furnace would be used to create a series of concentric glass spheres, providing protection against radiation, heat, micrometeorites, dust, and lunar quakes for extended lunar stays.

“The innermost living sphere called ‘The Nest’ will be designed to be protected by a couple of spheres filled with regolith to provide radiation protection,” Bermudez explains. Also on the research table, he says, is how to engineer one glass type that could potentially produce energy using sunlight to power the entire habitat.

On the Skyeports website, it’s made clear that the challenges of space exploration require audacious thinking and novel approaches.

“By harnessing the immense wealth of materials and energy found beyond our planet, we ensure the sustainability and self-sufficiency of future space missions.”

For more information on Skyeports, go to:

https://www.skyeports.com/