There is an interesting trend developing with the $20 million dollar Google Lunar XPrize. Earlier this year, Pittsburgh, PA. based Astrobotics, which hopes to develop regular deliver service to the Moon, announced that it has signed an agreement with the sole Japanese entry, Team Hakuto, to transport that team’s twin rovers to the Moon along […]
On October 3rd, Google Lunar XPrize competitor Moon Express announced that it had signed a launch agreement with Rocket Lab for at least two 2017 launches aboard that company’s Electron launch vehicle. The notice was remarkable for several reasons, not the least of which being it appeared to cement Moon Express as being the first […]
It’s a big, beautiful world!
The results of a new study indicate that a return to the Moon is clearly within NASA’s reach and existing budget, providing the agency is willing to follow the commercial model employed in the COTS and CRS programs to get there. The full title of the study, which was partially funded by a grant from […]
Mexico is set to become the first Latin American country to send a payload to the Lunar surface, courtesy of Google Lunar XPrize competitor Astrobotic. Although just a beginning, the agreement described in the press release below is an encouraging sign for other companies such as Bigelow Aerospace which are building business plans based on […]
April 15th, 2015 will mark the fifth anniversary of one of the most significant, and controversial policy changes in the history of the U.S. space program, the decision to cancel Project Constellation and NASA’s planned return to the Moon. Now, according to a story by veteran reporter Eric Berger in the Houston Chronicle, with less […]
Setting Up Shop / Image Credit Moon Express Florida Today reports that Moon Express has signed a deal with Space Florida for partial use of historic Launch Complex 36 in order to test engines and hardware for what will ultimately become its MX-1 Lunar Lander. From the story: “Moon Express is the first entrepreneurial “new […]
Morpheus : Image Credit NASA Bit by bit, NASA’s vision of the Kennedy Space Center as a 21st century spaceport is taking shape, offering an interesting mix of public and private spaceflight. And bit by bit, the spaceport which launched mankind to the Moon, is helping to send machines back. As Florida Today reports, as […]
Griffin Lander: Astrobotic Technology Inc. All those artifacts the United States left on the Moon are soon going to have company, perhaps a great deal of it. Just over a year ago, Moon Express held a gala event in Las Vegas to unveil its MX-1 Commercial Lunar Lander, the centerpiece of its effort to compete […]
Image Credit: Lunar Mission One Lunar Mission One, a private effort aimed at drilling at least 20 meters deep into the Moon’s South pole was announced in London today. As with an increasing number of missions, inital funding is being sought through a crowd-sourced KickStarter campaign. In this case key incentives are a digital memory […]
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