The European Space Agency (Esa) will show its commitment to the new wave of lunar exploration when member-state research ministers meet in Seville, Spain, next week.
The politicians are expected to commit hundreds of millions of euros to fund technologies that will support the US-led Artemis project to return humans to the Moon.
Included will be the money to complete two propulsion-cum-service modules that are needed to push the Americans' Orion crew capsules through space.
And here's another article:
The first map of Saturn's mysterious moon Titan reveals labyrinths and lakes - CNET
Thanks to those repeat visits, Cassini's radar instruments had time to examine Titan's features, resulting in the first global geologic map of the weird, icy world.
The map, published in Nature Astronomy on Monday, identifies six key features (or "geologic units"): plains, dunes, hummocky terrain (small mountains), lakes, labyrinth terrain and craters. Titan's surface is dominated by plains across the middle latitudes, which make up approximately 65% of the total mapped area. Dunes span the length of the equator, while the poles are home to Titan's weird methane lakes.
A weird, orbital dance keeps these moons of Neptune safely on track | Astronomy.com
Bobbing up and down like a carousel horse might not sound like a stable way to orbit a planet, but it works for one little moon of Neptune. The planet's innermost known satellite, Naiad, has a tilted orbit and it moves up-and-down relative to its neighboring moon, Thalassa.
The arrangement of the two moons’ orbits is an example of what scientists call an orbital resonance. Repeating patterns in their orbits apply a regular set of gravitational forces to the two moons. In this case, the repeating forces keep the moons in their orbits, but resonances can be disruptive as well.
The SpaceX starship could be on the moon as soon as 2022
Elon Musk's immense Starship isn't going to Mars yet, particularly after yesterday's Mk1 cryogenic test went up in smoke. But it could still be travelling somewhere out of this world in just a few years — meaning a lunar touchdown as soon as 2022.
The Starship will ultimately venture into deep space if Musk has his way. While there has been some info leaked that suggests SpaceX and NASA were trying to figure out where to land this thing on Mars, it does need a trial run somewhere slightly closer than 40 million miles away. SpaceX just became one of five companies now eligible to deliver robotic payloads to the Moon via NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services Program (CLPS) , which will be a boost for its Artemis program .
This may worth something:
NASA partners with SpaceX, Blue Origin, and more to send large payloads to the Moon - The Verge
In its ongoing effort to send cargo — and eventually people — to the lunar surface, NASA announced five new partnerships with commercial space companies that have designed robotic landers that can take large payloads to the Moon. The additions include some well-known industry heavyweights, such as SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Sierra Nevada Corporation, which have already partnered with NASA for other projects.
The newcomers will join an already formed pool of nine companies that are part of NASA's fledgling CLPS program, which stands for Commercial Lunar Payload Services. The goal is to have multiple different capabilities for transporting scientific instruments and cargo to the Moon, as NASA attempts to send people back to the lunar surface by 2024.
Antarctic tests will prepare this rover for a possible trip to an icy ocean moon –
Exploring a distant moon usually means trundling around its uniquely inhospitable surface, but on icy ocean moons like Saturn’s Enceladus, it might be better to come at things from the bottom up. This rover soon to be tested in Antarctica could one day roll along the underside of a miles-thick ice crust in the ocean of a strange world.
Little is known about these moons, and the missions we have planned are very much for surveying the surface, not penetrating their deepest secrets. But if we’re ever to know what’s going on under the miles of ice (water or other) we’ll need something that can survive and move around down there.
Saturn's Moon Titan Mapped | Mental Floss
Between 2004 and 2017, the NASA spacecraft Cassini performed more than 100 fly-bys of Saturn's moon. Titan is unique in that it's the only moon in the solar system with clouds and a dense, weather-forming atmosphere. This has made it hard to study from space, but by flying close to the surface, Cassini was able to capture the landscape in an unprecedented level of detail.
NASA's new map of Titan, published in the journal Nature Astronomy , reveals a varied world of mountains, valleys, plains, and sandy dunes that starkly contrast with the desolate wastelands we've seen on neighboring planets. It's also home to seas and lakes, making it the only place in the solar system other than Earth with known bodies of liquid. But instead of water, the pools mottling the moon's surface consist of liquid methane.
Apollo 12 Is NASA's Forgotten Mission To The Moon. : NPR
From NASA: Apollo 12 commander Charles "Pete" Conrad unfurls the United States flag on the lunar surface during the first extravehicular activity on Nov. 19, 1969. NASA hide caption
Fifty years ago, astronaut Pete Conrad stepped out of the lunar module onto the surface of the moon.
His first words were: "Whoopie! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me."
Conrad, who stood at just 5 feet 6 inches tall, was only the third human to set foot on the lunar surface. He did it on November 19, 1969, just four months after Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin made the first lunar landing. However, unlike Armstrong and Aldrin, Conrad and fellow astronaut Alan Bean are not household names.
Happening on Twitter
Europe keen to demonstrate Moon ambitions https://t.co/ydqiQxRpRz BBCScienceNews (from London, England) Fri Nov 22 02:51:22 +0000 2019
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