Moon

After evaluating three commercial designs for new Artemis moon landers, NASA on Friday awarded a single $2.9 billion contract to SpaceX, rejecting more expensive proposals from a team led by Blue Origin, owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and another led by Dynetics.

The contract will cover one unpiloted test flight from lunar orbit down to the surface and back again, and one piloted flight carrying two astronauts launched to the moon in a Lockheed Martin Orion capsule atop NASA's Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket.

Humans might soon visit the Moon again. NASA has completed a test on the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, igniting the four main engines for eight minutes and nineteen seconds on Thursday whereas the first test in January only ran for a minute.

"The SLS is the most powerful rocket NASA has ever built, and during today's test the core stage of the rocket generated more than 1.6 million pounds of thrust within seven seconds. The SLS is an incredible feat of engineering and the only rocket capable of powering America's next-generation missions that will place the first woman and the next man on the Moon," said acting NASA Administrator Steve Jurczyk in a statement.

Russian space agency Roscosmos says it has signed an agreement with China's National Space Administration to develop research facilities on the moon's surface, in orbit or both. Both countries' space agencies say the facilities will be available for use by other nations.

The news comes as Russia prepares to celebrate the 60th anniversary of its first-ever crewed space flight.

The YouTuber Mr Beast has announced that he secured space on the NASA Moon rover that is set to be launched in 2021. Onboard will be a hard drive with what he claims is the "universes first digital time capsule".

For $10 people can buy space on the hard drive to send images and videos to the moon "assuming it's legal".

We're going back to the Moon! 18 astronauts, nine of them women, are training for NASA's upcoming Artemis missions to travel to the Moon and, eventually, to Mars. The group includes the first woman who will walk on the lunar surface in 2024.

Recent experiments aboard the International Space Station have shown that some microbes can harvest valuable rare-earth elements from rocks, even when exposed to microgravity conditions. Microorganisms are already used on Earth to mine economically important elements from rocks, including rare earth elements, used in mobile phones and electronics.

It's unlikely to be economically viable to mine these elements in space and bring them back to Earth, according to Charles Cockell, a professor of astrobiology at the University of Edinburgh's School of Physics and Astronomy, who led the project.

The Finnish company Nokia has announced that they have been awarded a contract by Nasa to build a mobile network on the moon. Initially it will be based on the 4G/LTE technology and later upgraded to 5G.

The network will serve as a foundation for astronauts to make phone calls and send data. Ground stations on Earth will also be able to control devices and vehicles remotely.

Australia, Canada, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States of America have signed on as founding member nations to NASA's Artemis Accords, an international agreement that "will help to avoid conflict in space and on Earth by strengthening mutual understanding and reducing misperceptions."

"Artemis will be the broadest and most diverse international human space exploration program in history, and the Artemis Accords are the vehicle that will establish this singular global coalition," so NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. "With today's signing, we are uniting with our partners to explore the Moon and are establishing vital principles that will create a safe, peaceful, and prosperous future in space for all of humanity to enjoy."

NASA has annouced it's preparing for its second mission to Moon. Artemis, the first lunar mission since 1972, will land the first woman and the next man on the surface of the Moon in 2024.

"NASA engineers are laying the foundation for the moonwalks the first woman and next man will conduct when they land on the lunar South Pole in 2024 as part of the Artemis program. At the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, teams are testing the tools and developing training approaches for lunar surface operations," so NASA in a statement.

Soon it will be "go for launch" for Mars 2020 Perseverance rover. On July 30, NASA's new Mars rover will go on its seven-month-long journey to the Red Planet. The launch had been postponed a couple of times because of technical difficulties and setbacks related to COVID-19.

Perseverance will land in Jezero Crater where it will search for "signs that microbes might have lived on Mars long ago, collect soil samples to be returned to Earth on a future mission and pave the way for human exploration beyond the Moon."

Director of NASA's Commercial Crew Program Kathy Lueders has been named as the next associate administrator of the Human Exploration and Operations (HEO) Mission Directorate. NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, who announced Lueders' promotion on Friday, spoke highly of her: "Kathy gives us the extraordinary experience and passion we need to continue to move forward with Artemis and our goal of landing the first woman and the next man on the Moon by 2024."

VIPER is going to roam the moon soon. Today, Pittsburg-based lunar logistics service provider Astrobotic was awarded US$200 million by NASA to send the rover to the moon in 2023. VIPER, or Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, is going to explore the lunar surface, mapping its resources and looking for water ice. Under NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services private companies will be paid to send payloads to the moon.

Today's lunar eclipse that begins at 17:45(UTC) and lasts until 21:04(UTC) will be a "penumbral eclipse," which occurs when the outer ring of Earth's shadow just grazes the moon.

This subtle lunar eclipse will be entirely visible for observers in eastern Africa, the Middle East, southern Asia and Australia. It will start at moonrise for those on the eastern coast of South America, western Africa and Europe, and at moonset for skywatchers in Japan and New Zealand.

The full moon in June is called a Strawberry Moon because it coincides with the strawberry harvest. In Europe, an old name for this full Moon is the Mead Moon or the Honey Moon.

Scientists from the USGS Astrogeology Science Center have released the first-ever comprehensive geologic map of the moon. The map called “Unified Geologic Map of the Moon” completely shows the entire surface of the moon which will serve as a blueprint for future missions. The information came from six Apollo-era maps and recent satellite missions.

With the Nasa program, named Artemis having the goal to land on the moon by 2024, the space agency has awarded three contracts to private firms in order to determine over the next ten months which solution will be used to close the distance between lunar orbit and the surface. SpaceX has been awarded $135m, Blue Origin $579m and Dynetics $253m.