Blog & News

The robotic Mission Extension Vehicle-1 (MEV-1) launched Wednesday

A great summary of the current projects: https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/aerospace/satellites/how-nasa-will-grapple-and-refuel-a-satellite-in-low-earth-orbit It looks like DARPA's RSGS and NASA's Restore-L will both get to orbit in 2022. RSGS is headed for...

From the latest meeting on using lunar resources, the presentations are now available online.

Some of the craters at the Moon's poles are shallower than typical impact craters. It has just been suggested that the "fill" material could be largely water ice, as is true at Mercury: https://phys.org/news/2019-07-moon-thought.html Of course, the only way to really...

This week, specifically June 6-9, is the International Space Development Conference in Arlington, Virginia. Traditionally, this is the conference where new thinking and radical ideas receive a hearing from a broad, like-minded audience. My talk is at 11 AM on...

The firm Global Market Insights has taken a look at coming demand for space robotics:...

NASA has decided to include the Lunar Orbiting Platform-Gateway in its architecture for returning to the Moon in 2024. Ultimately to consist of several modules, the first module must be the one that keeps everything in the correct orbit. This module is called the...

Japan was an early leader in space robotics. Their ETS-VII mission in 1997 demonstrated the ability of robots on orbit to perform several useful tasks (see the Library for more information on ETS-VII). Now Japan is studying how to use autonomous robots to prepare a...

Last week did not bring us a single earth-shattering event. But there were so many technical accomplishments that manifested: Stratolaunch's air launch vehicle, the world's largest airplane, made its maiden flight Israel's Beresheet probe entered lunar orbit--the...

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine recently testified before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. Here was his testimony:...