An Orionid meteor flashes in a 2015 image captured by Marshall Space Flight Center’s all-sky camera in Alabama. (NASA / MSFC Photo)
Saturday night’s all right … for skywatching: Tonight’s mostly clear skies over Western Washington should provide a good opportunity to see the peak of the Orionid meteor shower, and a great opportunity to check out the nearly full moon on International Observe the Moon Night.
The moon is sure to one-up the meteors: With the full phase just a few days away, it’ll be in the sky nearly all night, washing out most of the Orionids’ fainter flashes. Nevertheless, the weekend timing and the sky cover forecast could make it worth your while to get out of town and see the show.
Those payloads could be flying to the moon as early as next year, NASA said today in its announcement of a program known as Lunar Surface Instrument and Technology Payloads. Somewhere between $24 million and $36 million would be available for the first round of payloads, with eight to 12 payloads expected to be selected.
“We are looking for ways to not only conduct lunar science but to also use the moon as a science platform to look back at the Earth, observe the sun, or view the vast universe,” said Steve Clarke, deputy associate administrator for exploration in NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.
Early science objectives could include monitoring heat flow within the moon’s interior, characterizing the solar wind and the vanishingly thin lunar atmosphere, and detecting and analyzing dust.
Technological payloads would take the form of instruments or systems that would facilitate future crewed and robotic missions to explore the moon and Mars, Clarke said.
Ryan Gosling plays the role of NASA astronaut Neil Armstrong in “First Man.” (Universal Pictures Photo)
Two big-name dramatic productions — “First Man” in theaters, and “The First” on Hulu — are putting the glorious past and potentially glorious future of space exploration on big and small screens.
But if you’re expecting the Ryan Gosling movie about Neil Armstrong, or the Sean Penn streaming-video series about the first mission to Mars, to tell a geeky off-world tale like “The Martian” … expect to be surprised.
An artist’s conception shows Blue Origin’s Blue Moon lunar lander. (Blue Origin Illustration)
Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos’ space venture, Blue Origin, has signed a letter of intent to cooperate with Germany’s OHB Group and MT Aerospace on a future mission to the moon that’ll use Blue Origin’s Blue Moon lunar lander.
MT Aerospace is a German supplier specializing in antennas, avionics and production systems for aerospace applications.
Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith, MT Aerospace CEO Hans Steininger and OHB executives Lutz Bertling and Kurt Melching signed the cooperative agreement on Tuesday during the International Astronautical Congress in Bremen, Germany, OHB said in a news release.
Organizers of “The Moon Race” and their partners lift a moon-festooned balloon as they unveil their effort at a space conference in Germany. (The Moon Race via Twitter)
A new nonprofit organization is partnering with Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture, Airbus and other heavy-hitters to create a moon-centric prize program known as “The Moon Race.”
The contest’s goal is to boost technologies that could contribute to sustainable lunar exploration. A lot of the details, however, are still up in the air — including exactly what those technologies will be, and how much the prizes will amount to.
The project’s German organizers say more will be revealed next year, to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the historic Apollo 11 moon landing. Between now and then, they plan to nail down the details in league with Blue Origin and Airbus, as well as the European Space Agency, Mexico’s space agency and Vinci Construction.
An artist’s conception shows Moon Express’ MX-1E spacecraft making its approach to the moon. (Moon Express Illustration)
Moon Express, which aims to start missions to the moon within the next couple of years, says it has raised $2.5 million in bridge financing and has begun a $20 million Series B financing round, anchored by a $10 million lead investor.
Proceeds will go toward building out facilities in Cape Canaveral, Fla., and developing the spacecraft for its commercial lunar flight program, the company said today in a news release.
An artist’s conception shows Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander on the lunar surface. (Astrobotic Illustration)
DNA-based data storage systems have been proposed as a theoretical way to preserve information for millennia on the moon, but the idea isn’t so theoretical anymore.
All of the data for those files will be encoded in strands of synthetic DNA that could easily fit within a tiny glass bead. The Microsoft-UW-Twist team has already demonstrated how the method can be used for efficient storage and retrieval of data files, including an OK Go music video.
An artist’s conception shows ispace’s lander and rover on the lunar surface. (ispace Illustration)
SpaceX has been signed up to provide rides to the moon for a pair of payloads built by ispace, a Japanese robotics and resource exploration company.
The announcement came today from ispace, the corporate heir to the Google Lunar X Prize’s Team Hakuto. The two lunar missions, tentatively set for 2020 and 2021, are part of a program called Hakuto-R, where Hakuto is the Japanese word for “white rabbit” and the R stands for “reboot.”
Ispace’s lunar orbiter/lander and lunar rovers would fly as secondary payloads on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. The primary goal for the first mission would be to put a spacecraft into lunar orbit. That would set the stage for the second mission, aimed at making a soft landing and deploying rovers to gather data on the lunar surface.
Maezawa is paying an undisclosed but reportedly substantial amount for the journey on SpaceX’s yet-to-be-built BFR spaceship, and there are scads of details to be worked out before the launch date, which is currently set for 2023.
Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk strike a pose at SpaceX’s headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif. (Yusaku Maezawa via Twitter)
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk today introduced Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa as the first paying customer for a trip around the moon.
“Finally I can tell you that ‘I choose to go to the moon,’” Maezawa said, echoing President John F. Kennedy’s famous phrase.
Maezawa, 42, founded a mail-order retail business called Start Today in 1998, which spawned what’s now Japan’s largest fashion retail website, known as Zozotown. His net worth is estimated at more than $3 billion.
He’s made a name for himself as a musician and art collector as well as an entrepreneur. During tonight’s big reveal at SpaceX’s headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif., Maezawa said he intended to invite six to eight artists from around the world, on the level of the late Pablo Picasso or Michael Jackson, to go around the moon with him.
