Lunar rover

Despite taking an unfortunate tumble on the lunar surface, Japan’s lunar lander has regained power more than a week after ending up face down on the Moon.China's Plan to Land Astronauts on the MoonThe Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) announced on Sunday that it had established communication with its Moon mission and resumed its operations. SLIM’s multiband spectroscopic camera (MBC) was even used to snap a photo of a rock dubbed “toy poodle” on the lunar surface, the space agency wrote on X.SLIM, short for Smart…

Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander is slated to blast off on Monday, January 8, carrying an assortment of goodies, including cutting-edge scientific rovers, bitcoin, and a piece of Mount Everest. No doubt, this ain’t your grandfather’s Moon mission, as the era of commercial space deliveries is now upon us.China's Plan to Land Astronauts on the MoonThe Moon will never be the same, thanks to a NASA-funded initiative meant to foster a new era of lunar exploration and enable private companies to deliver stuff to the lunar…

The Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft, which was launched on GSLV Mark 3 (LVM 3) heavy-lift launch vehicle successfully from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Andhra Pradesh's Sriharikota on July 14, has covered about two-thirds of the distance to the Moon. “The spacecraft has covered about two-thirds of the distance to the moon. Lunar Orbit Injection (LOI) set for Aug 5, 2023, around 19:00 hours IST,” Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) tweeted Friday.Chandrayaan-3, India's third lunar exploration mission, will make India…

 Toyota Motor plans to use regenerative fuel cell technology to power a manned lunar rover, executives said on Friday, raising the prospect of eventually using the moon's water ice as an energy source in the future. Japan has stepped up its space ambitions under Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. It is participating in NASA's Artemis programme and plans to have an astronaut at a lunar space station called Gateway as part of that in the latter half of the 2020's.Toyota has teamed up with Japan's space agency since 2019 to…

Toyota Motor plans to use regenerative fuel cell technology to power a manned lunar rover, executives said on Friday, raising the prospect of eventually using the moon's water ice as an energy source in the future.Japan has stepped up its space ambitions under Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.It is participating in NASA's Artemis programme and plans to have an astronaut at a lunar space station called Gateway as part of that in the latter half of the 2020's. Toyota has teamed up with Japan's space agency since 2019 to develop…

A test of the prototype was performed in California last year.Photo: AstrolabAfter testing its FLEX rover in the California desert last year, Astrolab is now making plans to transport the vehicle to the Moon. The astronautics startup signed an agreement with SpaceX to deliverAstrolab’s first lunar rover to the Moon on a future Starship mission.A Transformer Is Headed to the MoonOn Friday, Astrolab announced that SpaceX would use its Starship launch and landing system to transport the Flexible Logistics and Exploration…

NASA engineers are making progress on the agency’s Moon rover, which could begin its lunar adventure on the rocky satellite sometime in the mid 2020s.The Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (or VIPER) is a four-wheeled robot whose mission is to find and study water ice on the Moon’s South Pole. The 1,000-pound rover is being assembled at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.According to a NASA release, the rover’s lower chassis plate and parts of its frame have now been installed; it is literally the…

An engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory observes the COLDArm being tested in a bed of simulated lunar soil.Image: NASA/JPL-CaltechIt can get cold on the Moon—so cold in fact that these temperatures are likely to impede the abilities of some current NASA engineering. As a result, the space agency is testing out a new mechanical arm that is designed to withstand the frosty temperatures on the Moon ahead of the ongoing Artemis missions.The 6.5-foot-long (2-meter-long) robot arm is being developed and tested at NASA’s…

A spectacular view of Jupiter, as captured by NASA’s Juno probe. Image: NASAAfter successfully landing a rover on Mars last year, China has its interplanetary ambitions set on fartherdestinations in the solar system. As part of its expanding Tianwen program, China hopes to launch two spacecraft in the early 2030s to explore Jupiter and Uranus.The plan is to launch a pair of spacecraft together aboard a Long March 5 rocket, in which the larger probe would heads towards Jupiter and the smaller spacecraft would make its…