NASA Moon Mission

In the very long term, meaning decades down the line, space mining may be a highly profitable venture

Landing a spacecraft on the moon has long been a series of hits and misses. Last year, a spacecraft built by Intuitive Machines through a NASA-sponsored program put the US back on the moon for the first time since the end of the Apollo program, but the lander ended up tipping on its side and operated briefly on the surface. Now another US company Firefly Aerospace on Sunday added its lunar lander to the win list, becoming the first private entity to pull off a fully successful moon landing. Both US businesses are part of NASA's effort to support commercial deliveries to the moon ahead of astronaut missions later this decade. The moon is littered with wreckage from failed landings over the years. A rundown on the moon's winners and losers: First victories The Soviet Union's Luna 9 successfully touches down on the moon in 1966, after its predecessors crash or miss the moon altogether. The U.S. follows four months later with Surveyor 1. Both countries achieve more robotic landings

NASA announced more delays Thursday in sending astronauts back to the moon more than 50 years after Apollo. Administrator Bill Nelson said the next mission in the Artemis program -- flying four astronauts around the moon and back is now targeted for April 2026. It had been on the books for September 2025, after slipping from this year. The investigation into heat shield damage from the capsule's initial test flight two years ago took time, officials said, and other spacecraft improvements are still needed. This bumps the third Artemis mission a moon landing by two other astronauts to at least 2027. NASA had been aiming for 2026. NASA's Artemis program, a follow-up to the Apollo moonshots of the late 1960s and early 1970s, has completed only one mission. An empty Orion capsule circled the moon in 2022 after blasting off on NASA's new Space Launch System rocket. Although the launch and lunar laps went well, the capsule returned with an excessively charred and eroded bottom heat .

No official announcements have been made. However, such a move could be in line with previous speculation that the Trump administration could gut Nasa

Prada's spacesuit, known as the Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit, is designed not just for aesthetics but for performance, durability, and adaptability

Nokia has joined hands with Axiom Space to integrate advanced 4G/LTE communication capabilities into the next-generation spacesuits that will be used for the Artemis III mission, NASA's ambitious plans to land humans at the south pole of the moon. The Artemis-III mission is likely to be launched in 2026 and Nokia plans to build the first cellular network on the moon, which would be in-built in the space suits used by astronauts. Nokia and Axiom Space will incorporate high-speed cellular-network capabilities in the Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit (AxEMU), supporting HD video, telemetry data and voice transmission over multiple kilometers on the Moon, a company statement said. "Adding high-speed 4G/LTE network capability on the Moon will serve as a vital bridge linking astronauts to Earth, facilitating crucial data exchange, and enabling high-definition video communication over long distances," Russell Ralston, Axiom Space executive vice president of extravehicular activity, said i

Radar data gathered by Nasa's lunar reconnaissance orbiter (LRO) revealed that the deepest known pit on the moon leads to a cave 45 metres wide and up to 80 metres long

Soon after the capsule landed, Zhang Kejian, head of the China National Space Administration, announced the successful completion of the Chang'e-6 lunar mission

The China National Space Administration announced that Chang'e-6 "successfully landed at the designated landing area," the Xinhua News Agency reported

NASA will soon provide advanced training to Indian astronauts, with the goal of mounting a joint effort to the International Space Station, a top American diplomat said Friday.? US Ambassador to India Eric Garcetti made these remarks while speaking at the "US-India Commercial Space Conference: Unlocking Opportunities for US & Indian Space Startups," hosted by the US-India Business Council (USIBC) and the US Commercial Service (USCS) in Bangalore. NASA will soon provide advanced training to Indian astronauts, with the goal of mounting a joint effort to the International Space Station, hopefully, this year or shortly thereafter, which was one of the promises of our leaders' visit together. And soon we will launch the NISAR satellite from ISRO's Satish Dhawan Space Center to monitor all resources, including ecosystems, the Earth's surface, natural hazards, sea level rise, and the cryosphere, Garcetti said, according to a USIBC press statement issued here. You see whether it's the ...

US Ambassador to India Eric Garcetti has proposed to develop a "QUAD satellite" involving the partnership of India and the US. During his official trip to Bengaluru on Friday, he visited the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) headquarters and met with Chairman S Somanath and discussed the ongoing cooperation between India and the US in the field of space. In a statement, the space agency said the US Ambassador proposed the development of a "QUAD satellite". During the meeting, the ISRO chairman pointed to the opportunity to develop advanced detectors and packaging technologies with US-India academic institutions. He also emphasised the importance of building and standardising docking interfaces across human space programs to enable the utilization of space platforms by other countries and joining hands to build a navigation system on the moon, either in orbit or on the surface. Taking to 'X', Garcetti on Saturday shared how he was honoured to meet the ISRO Chairman and how

Senior defence officials from India and the US have met here to discuss opportunities to strengthen space cooperation and identified potential areas for collaboration with the American industry, the Pentagon said Friday. Meeting for the second annual US-India Advanced Domains Defence Dialogue (AD3), the officials discussed a wide range of bilateral cooperation. The American team was led by Vipin Narang, Acting Assistant Secretary of Defence for Space Policy, and the visiting Indian delegation was led by Vishwesh Negi, India's Joint Secretary for International Cooperation. During this year's Dialogue, Narang and Negi discussed opportunities to strengthen space cooperation and identified potential areas for collaboration with US industry, said Department of Defence Spokesperson Cmdr. Jessica Anderson. Among a group of US and Indian defence officials, the two co-chaired the first US-India principal-level tabletop discussion that explored areas to enhance cooperation in the space ...

NASA announced plans to build the first railway station on the moon for efficient payload transportation. This railway system is part of NASA's Moon to Mars initiative

China is preparing to launch a lunar probe on Friday that would land on the far side of the moon and return with samples that could provide insights into geological and other differences between the less-explored region and the better-known near side. The unprecedented mission would be the latest advance in the increasingly sophisticated and ambitious space exploration program that is now competing with the US, still the leader in space. China already landed a rover on the moon's far side in 2019, the first country to do so. Free from exposure to Earth and other interference, the moon's somewhat mysterious far side is ideal for radio astronomy and other scientific work. Because the far side never faces Earth, a relay satellite is a needed to maintain communications. The Chang'e lunar exploration probe is named after the Chinese mythical moon goddess. The probe is being carried on a Long March-5 YB rocket set for liftoff on Friday evening from the Wenchang launch centre on the south

Chang'e-6 will rely on a relay satellite orbiting the moon for communication with the earth, and the mission involves an ascent from the moon's 'hidden' side during the return journey

Space agency has to have a Coordinated Lunar Time by 2026 to streamline the work of lunar missions

The search for the astronauts is part of NASA's mission - Orion spacecraft atop the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, which will carry humans for missions to the Moon and eventually to Mars

Nasa is counting on a series of low-budget, private excursions to the moon to serve as pathfinders for missions carrying astronauts this decade

The Intuitive Machines IM-1 Nova-C, known as Odysseus, touched down on the Moon at 23:23:53 UTC on February 22, images from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera team have confirmed

The complication could be a setback for Intuitive Machines and partner NASA