As NASA partners with American industry to deliver science and technology payloads to the Moon, a dedicated team behind the scenes ensures every mission is grounded in strategy, compliance, and innovation. Leading that effort is Aubrie Henspeter, who advises all aspects of procurement for NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative—one of the cornerstone projects … Read more
Editor’s note: This article was updated on April 29, 2025, to correct the amount of data collected during Intuitive Machines’ IM-2 mission. NASA’s PRIME-1 (Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment 1) mission was designed to demonstrate technologies to help scientists better understand lunar resources ahead of crewed Artemis missions to the Moon. During the short-lived mission … Read more
NASA’s Electrodynamic Dust Shield (EDS) successfully demonstrated its ability to remove regolith, or lunar dust and dirt, from its various surfaces on the Moon during Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1, which concluded on March 16. Lunar dust is extremely abrasive and electrostatic, which means it clings to anything that carries a charge. It can … Read more
After landing on the Moon with NASA science and technology demonstrations March 2, Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission 1 concluded its mission March 16. Analysis of data returned to Earth from the NASA instruments continues, benefitting future lunar missions. As part of NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative and Artemis campaign, Firefly’s Blue Ghost … Read more
NASA and Firefly Aerospace will host a news conference at 2 p.m. EDT Tuesday, March 18, from NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston to discuss the company’s successful Blue Ghost Mission 1 on the Moon’s surface. Watch the news conference on NASA+. Learn how to watch NASA content through a variety of platforms, including social media. U.S. media … Read more
The International Space Station supports a wide range of scientific activities from looking out at our universe to breakthroughs in medical research, and is an active proving ground for technology for future Moon exploration missions and beyond. Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Mission-1 landed on the Moon on March 2, 2025, kicking off science and technology … Read more
A team at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, has captured first-of-its-kind imagery of a lunar lander’s engine plumes interacting with the Moon’s surface, a key piece of data as trips to the Moon increase in the coming years under the agency’s Artemis campaign. The Stereo Cameras for Lunar-Plume Surface Studies (SCALPSS) 1.1 instrument … Read more
Shortly after touching down inside a crater on the Moon, carrying NASA technology and science on its IM-2 mission, Intuitive Machines collected some data for the agency before calling an early end of mission at 12:15 a.m. CST Friday. As part of the company’s second Moon delivery for NASA under the agency’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar … Read more
Carrying NASA technology demonstrations and science investigations, Intuitive Machines is targeting their Moon landing no earlier than 12:32 p.m. EST on Thursday, March 6. The company’s Nova-C lunar lander is slated to land in Mons Mouton, a lunar plateau near the Moon’s South Pole, as part of NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative and … Read more
NASA and the Italian Space Agency made history on March 3, when the Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment (LuGRE) became the first technology demonstration to acquire and track Earth-based navigation signals on the Moon’s surface. The LuGRE payload’s success in lunar orbit and on the surface indicates that signals from the GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) … Read more