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By Space Force
The Space Campus is a major initiative aimed at enhancing the base's space operations and capabilities in the area. The project is designed to provide a state-of-the-art facility for personnel to work together and advance the mission, supporting the growing demands of space-related activities.
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By European Space Agency
The European Space Agency (ESA) and the Estonian Space Office have set out to develop Europe's newest space cyber range that aims to make space technology more secure and accessible for companies across Europe. Last year, Estonian industry was invited to submit proposals for concepts, and today the contract has been signed with a consortium led by Spaceit to begin development.
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By NASA
Teams with NASA are gaining momentum as work progresses toward future lunar missions for the benefit of humanity as numerous flight hardware shipments from across the world arrived at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for the first crewed Artemis flight test and follow-on lunar missions. The skyline at Kennedy will soon see added structures as teams build up the ground systems needed to support them.
Crews are well underway with parallel preparations for the Artemis II flight, as well as buildup of NASA’s mobile launcher 2 tower for use during the launch of the SLS (Space Launch System) Block 1B rocket, beginning with the Artemis IV mission. This version of NASA’s rocket will use a more powerful upper stage to launch with crew and more cargo on lunar missions. Technicians have begun upper stage umbilical connections testing that will help supply fuel and other commodities to the rocket while at the launch pad.
In summer 2024, technicians from NASA and contractor Bechtel National, Inc. completed a milestone called jack and set, where the center’s mega-mover, the crawler transporter, repositioned the initial steel base assembly for mobile launcher 2 from temporary construction shoring to its six permanent pedestals near the Kennedy’s Vehicle Assembly Building.
Teams at Bechtel National, Inc. use a crane to lift Module 4 into place atop the mobile launcher 2 tower chair at its park site on Jan. 3, 2025, at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Module 4 is the first of seven modules that will be stacked vertically to make up the almost 400-foot launch tower that will be used beginning with the Artemis IV mission.Betchel National Inc./Allison Sijgers “The NASA Bechtel mobile launcher 2 team is ahead of schedule and gaining momentum by the day,” stated Darrell Foster, ground systems integration manager, NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems Program at NASA Kennedy. “In parallel to all of the progress at our main build site, the remaining tower modules are assembled and outfitted at a second construction site on center.”
As construction of the mobile launcher 2’s base continues, the assembly operations shift into integration of the modules that will make up the tower. In mid-October 2024, crews completed installation of the chair, named for its resemblance to a giant seat. The chair serves as the interface between the base deck and the vertical modules which are the components that will make up the tower, and stands at 80-feet-tall.
In December 2024, teams completed the rig and set Module 4 operation where the first of a total of seven 40-foot-tall modules was stacked on top of the chair. Becthel crews rigged the module to a heavy lift crane, raised the module more than 150-feet, and secured the four corners to the tower chair. Once complete, the entire mobile launcher structure will reach a height of nearly 400 feet – approximately the length of four Olympic-sized swimming pools placed end-to-end.
On the opposite side of the center, test teams at the Launch Equipment Test Facility are testing the new umbilical interfaces, which will be located on mobile launcher 2, that will be needed to support the new SLS Block 1B Exploration Upper Stage. The umbilicals are connecting lines that provide fuel, oxidizer, pneumatic pressure, instrumentation, and electrical connections from the mobile launcher to the upper stage and other elements of SLS and NASA’s Orion spacecraft.
“All ambient temperature testing has been successfully completed and the team is now beginning cryogenic testing, where liquid nitrogen and liquid hydrogen will flow through the umbilicals to verify acceptable performance,” stated Kevin Jumper, lab manager, NASA Launch Equipment Test Facility at Kennedy. “The Exploration Upper Stage umbilical team has made significant progress on check-out and verification testing of the mobile launcher 2 umbilicals.”
https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/eusu-test-3-5b-run-1.mp4 Exploration Upper Stage Umbilical retract testing is underway at the Launch Equipment Test Facility at Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Oct. 22, 2024. The new umbilical interface will be used beginning with the Artemis IV mission. Credit: LASSO Contract LETF Video Group The testing includes extension and retraction of the Exploration Upper Stage umbilical arms that will be installed on mobile launcher 2. The test team remotely triggers the umbilical arms to retract, ensuring the ground and flight umbilical plates separate as expected, simulating the operation that will be performed at lift off.
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By European Space Agency
The European Space Agency’s Milky Way-mapper Gaia has completed the sky-scanning phase of its mission, racking up more than three trillion observations of about two billion stars and other objects over the last decade to revolutionise the view of our home galaxy and cosmic neighbourhood.
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By NASA
Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander getting encapsulated in SpaceX’s rocket fairing ahead of the planned liftoff for 1:11 a.m. EST Jan. 15 from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in FloridaSpaceX As part of NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative and Artemis campaign, the agency is preparing to fly ten instruments aboard Firefly Aerospace’s first delivery to the Moon. These science payloads and technology demonstrations will help advance our understanding of the Moon and planetary processes, while paving the way for future crewed missions on the Moon and beyond, for the benefit of all.
Firefly’s lunar lander, named Blue Ghost, is scheduled to launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket Wednesday, Jan.15, from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. After a 45-day cruise phase, Blue Ghost is targeted to land near a volcanic feature called Mons Latreille within Mare Crisium, a basin approximately 340 miles wide (550 kilometers) located in the northeast quadrant of the Moon’s near side.
How can we enable more precise navigation on the Moon? How do spacecraft interact with the lunar surface? How does Earth’s magnetic field influence the effects of space weather on our home planet? NASA’s instruments on this flight will conduct first-of-their-kind demonstrations to help answer these questions and more, including testing regolith sampling technologies, lunar subsurface drilling capabilities, increasing precision of positioning and navigation abilities, testing radiation tolerant computing, and learning how to mitigate lunar dust during lunar landings.
The ten NASA payloads aboard Firefly’s Blue Ghost lander include:
Lunar Instrumentation for Subsurface Thermal Exploration with Rapidity (LISTER) will measure heat flow from the Moon’s interior by measuring the thermal gradient, or changes in temperature at various depths, and thermal conductivity, or the subsurface material’s ability to let heat pass through it. LISTER will take several measurements up to 10 feet deep using pneumatic drilling technology with a custom heat flow needle instrument at its tip. Data from LISTER will help scientists retrace the Moon’s thermal history and understand how it formed and cooled. Lead organization: Texas Tech University
Lunar PlanetVac (LPV) is designed to collect regolith samples from the lunar surface using a burst of compressed gas to drive the regolith into a sample chamber (sieving) for collection and analysis by various instruments. Additional instrumentation will then transmit the results back to Earth. The LPV payload is designed to help increase the science return from planetary missions by testing low-cost technologies for collecting regolith samples in-situ. Lead organization: Honeybee Robotics
Next Generation Lunar Retroreflector (NGLR) serves as a target for lasers on Earth to precisely measure the distance between Earth and the Moon by reflecting very short laser pulses from Earth-based Lunar Laser Ranging Observatories. The laser pulse transit time to the Moon and back is used to determine the distance. Data from NGLR could improve the accuracy of our lunar coordinate system and contribute to our understanding of the inner structure of the Moon and fundamental physics questions. Lead organization: University of Maryland
Regolith Adherence Characterization (RAC) will determine how lunar regolith sticks to a range of materials exposed to the Moon’s environment throughout the lunar day. RAC will measure accumulation rates of lunar regolith on surfaces (for example, solar cells, optical systems, coatings, and sensors) through imaging to determine their ability to repel or shed lunar dust. The data captured will help test, improve, and protect spacecraft, spacesuits, and habitats from abrasive regolith. Lead organization: Aegis Aerospace
Radiation Tolerant Computer (RadPC) will demonstrate a computer that can recover from faults caused by ionizing radiation. Several RadPC prototypes have been tested aboard the International Space Station and Earth-orbiting satellites, but this flight will provide the biggest trial yet by demonstrating the computer’s ability to withstand space radiation as it passes through Earth’s radiation belts, while in transit to the Moon, and on the lunar surface. Lead organization: Montana State University
Electrodynamic Dust Shield (EDS) is an active dust mitigation technology that uses electric fields to move and prevent hazardous lunar dust accumulation on surfaces. EDS is designed to lift, transport, and remove particles from surfaces with no moving parts. Multiple tests will demonstrate the feasibility of the self-cleaning glasses and thermal radiator surfaces on the Moon. In the event the surfaces do not receive dust during landing, EDS has the capability to re-dust itself using the same technology. Lead organization: NASA’s Kennedy Space Center
Lunar Environment heliospheric X-ray Imager (LEXI) will capture a series of X-ray images to study the interaction of solar wind and Earth’s magnetic field that drives geomagnetic disturbances and storms. Deployed and operated on the lunar surface, this instrument will provide the first global images showing the edge of Earth’s magnetic field for critical insights into how space weather and other cosmic forces surrounding our planet impact Earth. Lead organizations: Boston University, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, and Johns Hopkins University
Lunar Magnetotelluric Sounder (LMS) will characterize the structure and composition of the Moon’s mantle by measuring electric and magnetic fields. This investigation will help determine the Moon’s temperature structure and thermal evolution to understand how the Moon has cooled and chemically differentiated since it formed. Lead organization: Southwest Research Institute
Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment (LuGRE) will demonstrate the possibility of acquiring and tracking signals from GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) constellations, specifically GPS and Galileo, during transit to the Moon, during lunar orbit, and on the lunar surface. If successful, LuGRE will be the first pathfinder for future lunar spacecraft to use existing Earth-based navigation constellations to autonomously and accurately estimate their position, velocity, and time. Lead organizations: NASA Goddard, Italian Space Agency
Stereo Camera for Lunar Plume-Surface Studies (SCALPSS) will use stereo imaging photogrammetry to capture the impact of the rocket exhaust plume on lunar regolith as the lander descends on the Moon’s surface. The high-resolution stereo images will aid in creating models to predict lunar regolith erosion, which is an important task as bigger, heavier spacecraft and hardware are delivered to the Moon in close proximity to each other. This instrument also flew on Intuitive Machines’ first CLPS delivery. Lead organization: NASA’s Langley Research Center
Through the CLPS initiative, NASA purchases lunar landing and surface operations services from American companies. The agency uses CLPS to send scientific instruments and technology demonstrations to advance capabilities for science, exploration, or commercial development of the Moon. By supporting a robust cadence of lunar deliveries, NASA will continue to enable a growing lunar economy while leveraging the entrepreneurial innovation of the commercial space industry.
Learn more about CLPS and Artemis at: http://www.nasa.gov/clps
Alise Fisher
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-2546
alise.m.fisher@nasa.gov
Natalia Riusech / Nilufar Ramji
Johnson Space Center, Houston
281-483-5111
natalia.s.riusech@nasa.gov / nilufar.ramji@nasa.gov
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