Lunar Science Stories
Lee esta historia en español aquí. Some of Earth’s microbes likely to hitch a ride to space with human explorers could survive in the shaded nooks and crannies of the Moon’s South Pole region, NASA scientists say. Published on Aug.…
Between Aug. 11 and 12, NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) captured a series of images of a new crater on the Moon. The crater formed on Aug. 5, when a SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage impacted the surface following its…
NASA has declared “wrenches down” on the first completed payload designed for Artemis astronauts to deploy on the Moon’s surface. Engineers working on NASA’s Lunar Environment Monitoring Station, or LEMS, have completed hardware development and testing and the payload is…
Using ground-based telescopes and space-based assets, NASA and SpaceX are tracking a used Falcon 9 upper stage from a commercial mission expected to impact the Moon on Wednesday, Aug. 5, near the Einstein and Bell craters. The impact poses no…
NASA is making progress in building the Moon Base, which will become a resilient outpost near the Moon’s South Pole for science, technology, and eventual human operations. To advance lunar surface infrastructure development, commercial partners such as Blue Origin, Firefly…
As NASA prepares for a sustained human presence on the Moon, missions will increasingly require spacecraft that can navigate and communicate without a direct connection to Earth. NASA’s Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment, or CAPSTONE, validated…
A predawn Moon-and-planets meetup, a returning comet, a great chance to see the Milky Way, and Saturn’s rings at a new angle. Skywatching Highlights Transcript An early morning hangout with the Moon and planets, a comet swings by, prime time…
Editor’s note: This release was updated on June 30, 2026, to clarify the engineering development version for the PROMISE rover. NASA announced Tuesday the selection of three companies to land four new missions on the Moon in late 2028 as…
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman will host a virtual conversation at 2:30 p.m. EDT, Tuesday, June 30, to share updates to NASA’s plans to build a Moon Base on the lunar surface. Administrator Isaacman and Carlos García-Galán, Moon Base program manager,…
On a bleak stretch of the Colorado Desert in Southern California, a compact four-wheeled rover recently trundled about 16 miles (26 kilometers) with minimal intervention from the team of engineers trailing it. Called ERNEST (Exploration Rover for Navigating Extreme Sloped…