NASA has cancelled its VIPER (Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover) project 14 months before the golf-cart sized rover, which has already been completed, was set to launch. The news, announced in a teleconference on 17 July, sent shockwaves around the space...
When H G Wells imagined a species of space creatures called Selenites living under the lunar surface in his sci-fi novel The First Men in The Moon, it was still unknown if such spaces even existed. While lunar sink holes and pits have long been accepted as part of the...
The Chang’e 6 mission is under way. Its goal is to be the first to bring back a sample from the far side of the Moon. It uses backup hardware originally designed for the near side version of this mission, Chang’e 5, which flew in November 2020. Ahead of the mission, a...
The cost of NASA’s Mars Sample Return project has doubled from a projected US$5.3 billion to US$11 billion, prompting many to question whether it is worth continuing with the mission. In response, the US space agency has turned to its field centres for cost cutting...
Farah Ghouri and David Todd followed the launch, descent, landing and subsequent communications of the first private spacecraft lunar landing “Odysseus is alive and well” was the first update on IM-1 from its operator after the lander touched down on the Moon, making...
The NASA/CalTech Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) field centre has laid off 530 people. The latest cuts, which affect 8 per cent of the workforce, include space scientists and engineers with significant experience. JPL is also releasing 40 contractors in addition to...
