MOONDAILY.com brings you daily news on our Moon and various lunar science issues http://www.moondaily.com/index.html Sat, 18 Apr 2026 11:50:55 GMT Sat, 18 Apr 2026 11:50:55 GMT en-us The European Space Agency will negotiate future participation in NASA missions after the US space agency revamped its lunar program, the ESA head told AFP Wednesday. The US space agency announced recently it is suspending its so-called Gateway lunar orbital space station efforts in order to focus on building a base on the Moon's surface. This left the European role in future exploration ]]> Sat, 18 Apr 2026 11:50:55 GMT Walking on the Moon by 2030, building a lunar base, and then perhaps on to Mars: after 30 years of honing its expertise, China is challenging the United States' supremacy in spaceflight. As US space agency NASA prepares for its crewed lunar flyby mission, Artemis II, we take a look at China's ambitions in space: - What is China's crewed programme? - China's crewed space programme - ]]> Sat, 18 Apr 2026 11:50:55 GMT Astrobotic has secured a contract from Thales Alenia Space to design and develop a lunar wheel assembly for the Italian Space Agency's Multi-Purpose Habitation mobility system, a pressurized habitation module intended to support long-duration crewed operations on the Moon as part of NASA's Artemis architecture. The Multi-Purpose Habitation module will serve as a core element enabling astronauts ]]> Sat, 18 Apr 2026 11:50:55 GMT Researchers explore recycling plant and human waste into fertilizer to transform barren moon and Mars surfaces into fertile fields for extraterrestrial agriculture. Their work appears in ACS Earth and Space Chemistry. 'In lunar and Martian outposts, organic wastes will be key to generating healthy, productive soils,' explains Harrison Coker, the first author on the study. 'By weathering si]]> Sat, 18 Apr 2026 11:50:55 GMT Astrobotic and Carnegie Mellon University have advanced their Distributed Agent Localization Estimation for spaceCraft, or DALEC, navigation system to Technology Readiness Level 5 under a NASA Small Business Technology Transfer Phase II award, moving it closer to deployment on the lunar surface. DALEC is designed to deliver positioning, navigation, and timing services in environments where GPS i]]> Sat, 18 Apr 2026 11:50:55 GMT When China's Chang'e 6 mission returned to Earth in June 2024, it brought back the first samples ever collected from the far side of the Moon, giving scientists an unprecedented look at the regolith in this unexplored region. A team led by Beihang University has now carried out the first high throughput, nondestructive 3D characterization of these materials, showing that the far side soil has di]]> Sat, 18 Apr 2026 11:50:55 GMT As the United States prepares to return astronauts to the moon with the Artemis II mission, researchers are testing how future crews might grow their own food on the lunar surface using local resources. Scientists at The University of Texas at Austin, working with colleagues at Texas A and M University, report that chickpeas can be grown and harvested in a simulated version of lunar regolith, of]]> Sat, 18 Apr 2026 11:50:55 GMT NASA has used the James Webb Space Telescope to make new observations of asteroid 2024 YR4, confirming that it will safely pass both Earth and the Moon in 2032. The asteroid had already been ruled out as a significant threat to Earth, but the latest data eliminate a previously non-zero chance of a lunar impact during that year. The Webb campaign targeted 2024 YR4 under a Director's Discret]]> Sat, 18 Apr 2026 11:50:55 GMT The Artemis astronauts entered the final phase of their run-up to a lunar loop on Monday, a tipping point of sorts that means the Moon's gravity is now having a stronger pull on the spacecraft than Earth's. The Orion capsule will now whip around the Moon, setting the crew up to travel farther from our home planet than any human before. The astronauts entered what NASA calls the lunar]]> Sat, 18 Apr 2026 11:50:55 GMT More than 50 years after humans first flew around the Moon, Artemis astronauts will repeat the feat on Monday and use the most basic instrument to study it: their eyes. Despite the technological advancements since the Apollo missions, NASA still relies on the eyesight of its astronauts to learn more about the Moon. 'The human eye is basically the best camera that could ever or will e]]> Sat, 18 Apr 2026 11:50:55 GMT The Artemis 2 astronauts have passed the halfway point between Earth and the Moon on Saturday as they sped toward a planned lunar flyby, with NASA releasing initial images of Earth taken from inside the Orion spacecraft. Astronaut Christina Koch said the crew had a collective 'expression of joy' upon being told of the milestone, which was hit around two days, five hours and 24 minutes afte]]> Sat, 18 Apr 2026 11:50:55 GMT Four Artemis astronauts were zooming towards the Moon late Thursday after a major engine firing, a milestone that commits NASA to the first crewed lunar flyby in more than half a century. With enough thrust to accelerate a stationary car to highway driving speed in less than three seconds, the Orion capsule engine blasted the astronauts on their trajectory towards the Moon, which they now wi]]> Sat, 18 Apr 2026 11:50:55 GMT Four astronauts blasted off aboard a massive NASA rocket Wednesday on a long-anticipated journey around the Moon, the first crewed lunar flyby in more than 50 years. With a thunderous roar that reverberated far beyond the launchpad, the enormous orange-and-white rocket carried three Americans and one Canadian away from Florida's Kennedy Space Center at approximately 6:35 pm (2235 GMT) local ]]> Sat, 18 Apr 2026 11:50:55 GMT The four astronauts selected for the Artemis 2 Moon mission will be the first to travel there in more than five decades. In doing so, they will become the new faces of American space exploration. Americans Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover and Christina Koch will make the voyage with their Canadian colleague Jeremy Hansen, and are now preparing to take off as soon as Wednesday. The journey]]> Sat, 18 Apr 2026 11:50:55 GMT More than half-a-century after the groundbreaking Apollo program's last crewed flight to the Moon, three men and one woman are preparing for a lunar journey set to turn a new page in American space exploration. The long-delayed NASA mission dubbed Artemis II is slated to lift-off from Florida and venture to Earth's natural satellite as early as April 1. They won't land but are instead on]]> Sat, 18 Apr 2026 11:50:55 GMT