Category Archives: Surviving lunar night

Friday / 24 October 2025

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ispace Innovation / Cooperation Offers Success Model for Lunar Advancement

ispace, inc. (Japan), developing Moon landers / rovers in HAKUTO-R program, planned to collect lunar regolith for US$5,000 and transfer ownership to NASA — evoking lunar property rights questions; subsidiary ispace-Europe signs 6 Oct US$22M Payload Services Agreement (PSA) with Magna Petra Corp. to deliver (via subsidiary ispace-USA APEX 1.0 lander / micro-rover) NASA MSOLO mass spectrometer for lunar Helium-3 prospecting under Magna Petra-NASA 5 May Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA); ispace signs 5 Sep MoU with Digantara (India) for cislunar awareness and 23 Oct with OrbitAID (India) for refueling, indirectly supporting ISRO-JAXA LUPEX / Chandrayaan-5 mission (JAXA rocket / rover, ISRO lander) launching NET 2028

Image Credits: ispace

Friday / 12 September 2025

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Namesake Carruthers Instrument Honors Physicist, Inventor, Astronomer

Launching September alongside IMAP spacecraft is Carruthers Geocorona Observatory for imaging UV light in Earth upper atmosphere, named for George Robert Carruthers PhD, b. 1939; at US Naval Research Laboratory, Carruthers invented gold-plated Far Ultraviolet Camera / Spectrograph, which was 1st astronomical instrument on Moon; placed there 21 Apr 1972 by Astronaut John Young during Apollo 16, Young observed Earth and 550+ stars, nebulae, galaxies; Carruthers built 1st telescope age 10, awarded patent age 30 for instrument to image radiation, providing 1st proof of interstellar molecular hydrogen; spearheaded development of instruments for Moon, Skylab, ARGOS, 4 Shuttle flights; ILOA working for long-term lunar observatory

Image Credits: NASA / Charlie Duke / John Young, NRL, Center top L-R: Duke, Rocco Petrone, Carruthers, Young

Friday / 27 June 2025

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Lonestar Data Sees Moon as Effective Data Storage Location

NewSpace commercial enterprise Lonestar Data Holdings seeks safety for critical data from the 402 quintillion bytes created daily by humans, a number that doubles every few months; Chair and CEO Chris Stott says lunar storage, orbital and eventually on / under Moon surface, would be the best defense from a catastrophe-caused data center shut-down or loss that makes vital information unavailable; Stott wants to preserve human knowledge so it is not lost as when the Alexandria library burned, says the time is now, when cost to put a kilogram in space is US$5,000, down from $100,000

Credits: Lonestar Data Holdings

Friday / 23 May 2025

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Astrobotic Announces Power Technology Breakthrough for Surviving Lunar Night

 Wireless charging is now commercially available for space applications, furthering Astrobotic goal “to make space accessible to the world”; 125W of power to rovers or astronaut-held tools will transfer from lander or Vertical Solar Array Technology platform, whether covered in 4cm of regolith dust, at -180°C, vibrating, or in an electromagnetic field with virtually no atmosphere; Astrobotic led WiBotic, Bosch, University of Washington and NASA Glenn in development, for ~54 months, under US$5.7M NASA Tipping Point contract; 400W system is in the works

Credits: Astrobotic

Tuesday / 29 April 2025

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Firefly Aerospace Shares Knowledge Gained from Blue Ghost Moon Lander

Firefly Aerospace Blue Ghost US$101M Mission 1 operated 2-16 Mar on Moon at Mare Crisium with 10 CLPS payloads; 7 automated engine burns navigated constantly changing center of gravity for landing; completed 100% of mission objectives, operated 14.4 days, 5 hours into lunar night; lunar noon at 121°C hotter than expected due to reflection off nearby crater wall, changing X-band antenna angle allowed shade to re-establish radio operation; radiators and more batteries could allow future landers to operate components through lunar night

Credits: Firefly Aerospace

Tuesday / 15 April 2025

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New ispace-U.S. CEO Elizabeth Kryst Signs 2 Memorandums of Understanding

40th Space Symposium was backdrop for 2 announced collaborations; ispace-U.S. will work with Zeno Power, Tyler Bernstein Co-Founder / CEO, to develop technologies enabling survival of lunar night; demo mission planned NET 2027 with ispace APEX 1.0 next-generation lander (using Resilience-learned knowledge) and Zeno Power radioisotope power system (RPS) providing continuous, reliable heat / electricity via nuclear that solar panels cannot, during the 14-day lunar night at –173°C; ispace will work with Redwire (NYSE:RDW), President Mike Gold, 1 of 14 prime holders of CLPS IDIQ (indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity) contracts, worth US$2.6B, to pursue future CLPS contracts

Credit: ispace