Latest Exploration of the Moon Stories

Michael Harper for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online There's something particularly “Le Voyage dans la lune” about this next story. According to Asian News International and the Associated Press (AP) , The United States of America had planned a mission to blow up the moon in the 1950s. The intention was, apparently, to spook the Soviet Union and have them believe that we could do much worse to them. According to these reports, this project was called “A Study of Lunar...

Lawrence LeBlond for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Hundreds of moon rocks that have been handed out to state governments and foreign countries through the years have gone missing, according to a NASA audit last December. Though some have been recovered, most are still missing. On a good note, another set of lunar pebbles were found this week in a government storage area in St. Paul, Minnesota. The rocks were part of the Apollo 11 lunar landing mission on July 20, 1969 in which...

[ Watch the Video: Moon Phase & Libration 2013 ] Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has helped to create an animation showing hourly intervals of the moon's surface throughout next year. Topographic measurements by the Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter aboard LRO makes it possible to simulate shadows on the Moon's surface. "Thanks to Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, we now have excellent terrain maps of the Moon that can tell us...

Brett Smith for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online The prospect of finding frozen water on the moon has several companies scrambling to stake a claim in “them thar lunar hills.” "This is like the gold rush that led to the settlement of California," said Phil Metzger, a physicist who leads the Granular Mechanics and Regolith Operations Lab, part of Kennedy Space Center's Surface Systems Office. "This is the water rush." Water has already been found on asteroids and its...

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online NASA has opened up registration for the 20th Annual Great Moonbuggy Race, kick-starting the contest for high school, college and university students from around the world. The two-decade old competition will take place on April 26 - 27 next year at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. NASA originally created the event to help with classroom learning, provide young thinkers and builders with real-world...

HUNTSVILLE, Ala., Nov. 7, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Registration is now open for the 20th annual NASA Great Moonbuggy Race, which challenges high school, college and university students around the world to build and race fast, lightweight "moonbuggies" of their own design. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) The students' work will culminate in two days of competitive racing April 26-27, 2013, at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Ala....

Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) has completed its first three performance milestones for NASA's Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) initiative, which is intended to lead to the availability of commercial human spaceflight services for government and commercial customers. During the company's first milestone, a technical baseline review, NASA and SpaceX reviewed the Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket for crew transportation to low-Earth orbit and discussed future plans...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 1, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) has completed its first three performance milestones for NASA's Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) initiative, which is intended to lead to the availability of commercial human spaceflight services for government and commercial customers. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) During the company's first milestone, a technical baseline review, NASA and...

HOUSTON, Oct. 28, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) Dragon spacecraft splashed down in the Pacific Ocean at 2:22 p.m. CDT Sunday a few hundred miles west of Baja California, Mexico. The splashdown successfully ended the first contracted cargo delivery flight contracted by NASA to resupply the International Space Station. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO ) "With a big splash in the Pacific Ocean today, we are reminded...

Engineers at NASA’s Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., have installed the third and final science instrument that will fly onboard NASA's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE). LADEE is a robotic mission that will orbit the moon to gather detailed information about the lunar atmosphere, conditions near the surface and environmental influences on lunar dust. "The installation of the final science instrument to LADEE’s flight structure in the clean room at...