by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor

Of the six launches known to be scheduled to close out August, there’s only one – Artemis I — that truly matters in any real sense. The others will be duly recorded but little remembered in what could be the busiest launch year in human history.

NASA Program Update

NASA will hold a media teleconference at 2 p.m. EDT Friday, Aug. 19, to announce regions near the lunar South Pole the agency has identified as potential areas for astronauts to land as part of the Artemis III mission, targeted for 2025. This will be the first time astronauts will set foot on the Moon since NASA’s Apollo 17 mission in 1972.

Audio of the briefing will livestream on NASA’s website.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (The Aerospace States Association PR) — The Aerospace States Association (ASA) is proud to honor Apollo 17 Astronaut and former U.S. Senator Harrison Schmitt with the 2022 Thomas R. Hobson Distinguished Aerospace Service Award. This recognition is given to someone who demonstrates exemplary character along with a genuine passion for advancing the aerospace industry. The awards namesake, Thomas R. Hobson, was a lifelong ASA member who was instrumental in creating relationships among the aerospace and defense industries at the local, state and national levels.

NASA has decided that the Space Launch System (SLS) wet dress rehearsal earlier this week that ended prematurely was sufficient for the agency to move forward with having the giant rocket launch an uncrewed Orion spacecraft to the moon later this summer.

HOUSTON (NASA PR) — Like a time capsule that was sealed for posterity, one of the last unopened Apollo-era lunar samples collected during Apollo 17 has been opened under the careful direction of lunar sample processors and curators in the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science (ARES) Division at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. This precious and well-preserved sample will serve as a narrow window into the permanent, geological record of Earth’s closest celestial neighbor – the Moon.

HOUSTON (NASA PR) — People say good things come to those who wait. NASA thinks 50 years is the right amount of time as it begins tapping into one of the last unopened, Apollo-era lunar samples to learn more about the Moon and prepare for a return to its surface.

by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson and top officials provided an update on the Artemis program on Tuesday, delivering the not unexpected news that the space agency will not meet its deadline of landing a man and the first woman of color at the south pole of the moon in 2024. Instead, the landing will be delayed until at least 2025.

By Margo Pierce
NASA’s Spinoff Publication

Moon dust isn’t like the stuff that collects on a bookshelf or on tables – it’s ubiquitous and abrasive, and it clings to everything. It’s so bad that it even broke the vacuum NASA designed to clean the Moon dust off Apollo spacesuits.

With NASA’s return to the Moon and its orbit, it will need to manage the dust, which is dangerous for people too. The first step is knowing how much is around at any given time. Efforts to do just that are already paying off on Earth, in the fight against air pollution.

REDDING, UK (University of Redding PR) — Planned missions to return humans to the Moon need to hurry up to avoid hitting one of the busiest periods for extreme space weather, according to scientists conducting the most in-depth ever look at solar storm timing.

Scientists at the University of Reading studied 150 years of space weather data to investigate patterns in the timing of the most extreme events, which can be extremely dangerous to astronauts and satellites, and even disrupt power grids if they arrive at Earth.

Chang’e-5’s ascender has lifted off from the moon on its way to an rendezvous with an orbital vehicle that will transport its lunar soil samples back to Earth. Chinese media are reporting the ascender successfully reached orbit after lifting off from the Ocean of Storms. It is expected to rendezvous and dock with the orbiter-return vehicle on Saturday. The ascender will transfer its samples to the return vehicle, which is […]