Vol 45, Week 27

NASA & COMMERCIAL PARTNERS

• Another round of awards, totaling nearly $600 million, to be given to NASA commercial partners for lunar missions (Astrobotic $297.9M, Firefly Aerospace $144.2M, Intuitive Machines $148.3M).
• Engineering model of Perseverance rover (dubbed “Promise”) may be repurposed for lunar mission with multi-mission radioisotope thermoelectric generator.
• Blue Origin is repairing and redesigning launch pad after New Glenn explosion damaged LC36A at Cape Canaveral, could take at least 12 months.
• Firefly’s Blue Ghost Mission 2, launching late 2026, to use the NVIDIA Jetson platform to perform the first edge AI processing in lunar orbit.
• NASA will send a FIFA World Cup 2026 soccer ball to the Moon if the US men’s team wins the tournament (US women’s team has won 4 times).

GLOBAL REPORTS

• ESA is working to procure lunar topographical data from outside sources for its Argonaut lander, which is planned to land near the Moon’s South Pole in 2030 and deliver about 1,500 kg of cargo.
• China is aiming to launch the Long March 10B this week for its first orbital flight and sea-recovery attempt, ahead of the Long March 10A + Mengzhou spacecraft’s space station debut later this year, testing critical technologies for its 2030 crewed lunar missions.
• The Lunar Codex and ILOA Hawai’i announced collaboration to launch cultural archives to the Moon on ILO-1 mission.

BEYOND EARTH

• Wrist joint on the ISS Canadarm2 robotic arm replaced during 7-hour, 20-minute spacewalk by Jessica Meir and Chris Williams.
• Perseverance rover discovered a record-breaking concentration of organic molecules in mudstones within Jezero Crater’s “Bright Angel” outcrop on Mars.
• Potentially habitable ‘Super-Earth’ exoplanet GJ 3378b discovered only 25 light years from Earth.