NASA

NASA decided to bombard the moon with low -budget commercial missions. The results are being bleak

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The image above was sent by the Athena Machines lunar module before running out of energy. Like his predecessor, he was horizontal, which prevented him from deploying his loads. To top it off, he did it in an orientation and an orography that did not allow him to recharge his batteries. Athena (IM-2) is one of the many Missions of the NASA Commercial Lunar Payload (Clps) Commercial Program. Announced in 2018, It is the return of the United States to the lunar surface after more than 50 yearssince NASA stopped doing lunar missions (manned or not) after Apollo 17. CLPS hires private companies to transport NASA scientific experiments To the moon. These companies develop commercial spaces that finance with NASA contracts and other agencies or companies interested in sending load to the Moon. For NASA it is a very low cost approach, since the contracts revolve around 100 million dollars per mission, while the alunizas of the Surveyor program of the 1960s cost 10 times more (adjusting their value from then on inflation). It is also a high -risk approach, how they are demonstrating the first results. NASA pays the agreed amount and does not cover cost overruns, transferring to companies a huge technical and financial challenge. For NASA a failure represents a manageable loss, so it is bombing the moon of CLPS missions. For companies, the pressure is increasing. A difficult beginning The CLPS missions had to start launching in 2020. The Orbitbeyond company canceled its contract in 2019 for financial problems, renouncing before starting. Masten Space, another selected, broke in 2022, canceling his mission planned by 2023. Astrobotic, Firefly Aerospace and Intuitive Machines ended up delaying their releases, but they are still in the race. However, of the four CLPS missions launched to date, only one has achieved a completely successful moon landing: ❌ Astrobotic pilgrim. The first CLPS mission. He received NASA 79.5 million dollars to transport 14 useful charges to the Moon. It was launched on January 8, 2024 with a Vulcan Centaur rocket of Ula. The ship suffered a propellant leak shortly after the launch that left it without possibilities to reach the lunar surface. He went down in history as First American attempt of moon landing from the Apollo missions, but the fuel escape left it unusable. First failure.❌ Odysseus of intuitive machines. The IM-1 mission received 77.5 million dollars from NASA to send six scientific instruments to the moon. It was launched on February 15, 2024 aboard a Falcon 9 rocket from Spacex. Unlike pilgrim, the Nova-C ship “Odysseus” reached the lunar surface, But it was sidewayswhich prevented deploying many of its useful charges. Even so, it continued to work for seven days before running out of energy.✔️ Blue Ghost of Firefly Aerospace. The mission received a contract of 101.5 million from the NASA to take 10 useful charges to the moon. It was launched on January 15, 2025 in a Falcon 9 rocket in Spacex. The ship alunicized smoothly and vertically on March 2, 2025. It was the first completely successful mooning of a private company on the moon. Among other instruments, the mission deployed a heat probe under the lunar regol.❌ Athena of intuitive machines. The second mission of Intuitive Machines received 47 million dollars from NASA to display the prime-1 ice prospecting experiment on the moon. It was launched on February 27, 2025 in a Falcon 9 rocket. Like Odysseus, the Athena ship managed to descend to the Mons Mouton region, near the South Lunar Pole, but it was left aside again due to problems with its navigation sensors. Consequently, he could not recharge his batteries and died prematurely after transmitting images and some initial data. The NASA trailblazer lunar orbiter ran the same fate launched next to Athena as part of another agency’s low cost program: the Simplex missions. NASA lost contact with the orbiter shortly after its deployment. Its predecessor, the Cubesat Lunah-Map launched next to the Lunar Artemis I mission, also ended in failure due to a propulsion failure. Another moment that dazzled the Clps missions was the cancellation of the Viper Rover when it was already built. NASA’s rover, designed to search water in the South Lunar Pole, was going to be launched with the Astrobotic Griffin module, but was canceled by NASA so as not to have to take delays and cost overheads. Of course, instead of dismantling it, the agency has ended up making it available to private companies interested in operating it. The following to try Astrobotic, with the Lunar Griffin module, scheduled for the end of this year Intuitive Machines, with the IM-4 missions (which will take the prospect drill of the European Space Agency to the South Lunar Pole) and IM-3 (which will travel to an enigmatic lunar swirl, Reiner Gamma), in 2026 Firefly Aerospace, with the Blue Ghost 2 missions, next year, and Blue Ghost 3, in 2028 (using an orbiter and a landing module to investigate the Gruithuisen domes, a lunar territory never explored) And Draper, aboard the Apex module of the Japanese company Ispace, with the aim of alunizar on the hidden face of the moon The half full glass Image: Firefly Aerospace Despite these setbacks, each ship of the Clps program has helped the development of the companies involved. Although the scientific value of these missions is much lower than that of more advanced programs, such as those of the Chinese space agency, CLPS offers NASA a more economical and flexible path to explore the moon and start energizing a lunar economy. The program has had a difficult start (after all they were high -risk missions), but has fulfilled the objective of involving private industry in lunar exploration, lowering access to the moon and delivering some scientific results to a comparatively low cost. If the next missions manage to improve the success rate, CLPS will be the scientific support that the artemis man -manned program needs. Image | Intuitive machines In Xataka | Elon Musk has … Read more

After 48 years, Voyager probes are running out of plutonium. So NASA has taken extreme measures

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The emblematic Voyager 1 space probes and Voyager 2, launched almost 50 years ago, are running out of energy. In order not to lose them, NASA has made the decision to turn off two other instruments to extend its useful life. One less instrument in each Voyager. Last February 25, NASA reveals nowthe mission team turned off the cosmic rays subsystem of the Voyager 1 probe, which studied high -energy particles in the interstellar space. The instrument has been doing science all this time and in 2020 allowed first How electrons from the sun accelerate when bouncing in shock waves as they move outside the solar system. Voyager 1 is the object manufactured by humans that is farther from earth and that has been going into the interstellar space more time. On March 24, NASA will also turn off the instrument that measures low -energy loaded particles in the Voyager 2. These movements seek to reduce the energy consumption of the probes, which depend on a radioisotope generator whose plutonium is running out. Both lose about 4 watts of power every year. There are hardly any operational instruments. NASA has been turning off the functions of the Voyager to prolong your useful life. Of the 10 scientific instruments Originals, only three will continue to function in each of the twin probes, one of them for just a few months: The magnetometer: measures the strength and direction of the magnetic field in the confines of the solar system, helping to understand how the magnetic field of the sun and the magnetic field of interstellar space interact The plasma wave subsystem: detects electromagnetic and plasma waves, providing information on the density and plasma temperature in interstellar space In the Voyager 1, the instrument of low -energy loaded particles, which NASA plans to also deactivate at the end of 2025. In the Voyager 2, the cosmic rays subsystem, which will remain operational until 2026 A growing repair history. In May 2024, after six months without receiving legible scientific data due to the degradation of the internal memory of Voyager 1, NASA achieved restore information through a complex (And almost heroic) Software update. It had already passed in 2010 with Voyager 2, but on that occasion It was solved With a restart. Not only memory is failing. In September 2024, engineers had to light secondary propellants of the Voyager 1, inactive for decades, to correct the orientation of the probe due to an obstruction of its main engines, also the result of its longevity. The procedure implied careful temporal heating of inactive engines, but was successful and allowed to continue with the mission. NASA expects them to reach 2030. Suzanne Dodd, head of the Voyager project, said in a statement that turning off instruments is a crucial step to avoid the “premature” purpose of the mission. Thanks to these adjustments, both ships could continue to send scientific information at least until the 2030s, although with a progressive reduction of their abilities. As for the “premature”: the Voyager have widely overcome their original mission, whose initial plan was to explore Jupiter and Saturn. Thanks to excellence in their engineering and these constant adjustments, the ships have continued to work beyond what is expected, revealing unique information about interstellar space and heliopause, the region where the solar wind loses its influence. Images | POT In Xataka | The rescue of Voyager 1 has begun. With 8 kb of memory, a programming language of 1957 and an unimportant LAG

The FBI, the Pentagon and the NASA have ordered to keep the secret

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Elon Musk announced from Your profile in X that Doge would send an email to all federal officials to whom they had to respond without a period of less than 48 hours. Otherwise, they could occur like automatically fired. Those responsible for these agencies have already been adopted a decision in this regard: to ignore that email. Musk mail and its strategy. According to published Fortunein the issue of mail, aimed at the more than 2.3 million federal employees, you could read: “What did you do last week?” Inside, Doge urged officials to indicate what they had been working on during the last week. If they did not receive an answer, Doge would assume that this official was no longer active, which would imply his automatic resignation. It is not the first time that Elon Musk and Doge uses a intimidating email as a channel to fire employees. In 2022, when the millionaire took control of Twitter also sent emails to employees urging them to resign If they did not agree with the new policies that established upon arrival. On that occasion, the result was the dismissal From the Twitter template, although the play did not always go well. NASA is not in a hurry. At least two government agencies have openly challenged Doge’s indications regarding the dismissal mail. NASA was the first to respond: in an internal statement to which It has had access Bloombergthe managers of the space agency urged their 17,000 employees not to respond to that email until they had a guide on how to respond to ensure that “all the rules are met.” Those responsible for the agency warned of “pausar any response to the email in question, so as not to reveal confidential or prior information to decision making to unknown recipients”, since doing so could incur a leak of reserved information. They also exempted responding to Doge’s requirement to all permission employees or who were on vacation, because it is not among their obligations to review the mail these days. The FBI and the pentagon on the spam tray. The managers in charge of supervising the officials of the Pentagon and the FBI have not been very supportive to immediately respond to Doge’s mail. According to confirmed Associated Press, Kash Patel, the newly appointed director of the FBI said that “the FBI, through the director’s office, is in charge of all our review processes, and will carry out reviews in accordance with the FBI procedures. When when And if more information is required, we will coordinate the answers. For their part, from the State Department, Defense and National Security, they were much more direct ordering all their employees to ignore Doge mail, ensuring that the State Department would respond for its workers. “No employee is obliged to inform about his activities outside the department’s command chain,” wrote Tibor Nagy, interim State Undersecretary to the officials in charge. The reasons are very similar to those argued from NASA: there is a high risk of revelation of secrets in those answers. 8.5 million by mail. According to estimates of Fortunethe “drag fishing” maneuver that Doge has used when sending that email will involve an approximate loss of 166,500 hours of work time of the officials, taking as reference the five minutes that Elon Musk assured that would take it to answer it. All those hours employed in justifying the work of officials represent a disbursement of 8.5 million dollars for state coffers, taking into account that the average salary of public officials in the US is 106,000 dollars a year. In Xataka | A government “Extremely Hardcore”: Elon Musk is applying to the US the same recipe that has applied to all its companies Image | Dvids (Justin Pacheco)

NASA ends up announcing that this large asteroid has a 1% chance of impacting with the earth. That is not normal

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At the end of March last year, NASA launched a very special statement. The agency came to say that the biggest object that will happen near the earth will be An asteroid that will approximate 32,000 kilometers And it can be seen with the naked eye on April 13, 2029. A few hours ago, NASA has given another “those” news. They have found a meteorite distinct To all we know. YR4: Impact risk. As we said, NASA has issued a statement About an asteroid called as 2024 YR4 Discovered at the end of December 2024 by the Atlas system in Chile. This object has drawn attention because it presents a probability of impact superior to all recent meteorites: 1% for December 22, 2032which makes it one of the asteroids with the greatest potential risk of collision registered to date. With everything and as we usually say in these cases, this estimate will possibly change as new observations are made, with expectations that the probability of impact decreases. Classification and risk. The asteroid has an estimated size of between 40 and 91 meters in diameter, similar to that of the object that caused the Tunguska event in 1908. Therefore, currently It is classified at level 3 of the Torino scaleindicating a real probability of impact that merits monitoring, although, again, its level is expected to be reduced as more data will be obtained. This scale, used to evaluate the risk of asteroid impact, goes from 0 (without danger) to 10 (catastrophic collision). In any case and for us to get an idea, before this finding there was no recorded asteroid with a score greater than 0 on the Torino scale. Closeness and probabilities of impact. The closest step of 2024 YR4 is estimated at 0.00001 Astronomical Units (AU) of the Earth, which is equivalent to 1,500 kilometers away, that is, closer than many satellites in terrestrial orbit. At the moment, The impact probability is 1 in 83 (Approximately 1.2%), which has generated that concern in the scientific community. However, and although we look repetitive, it is important to underline that the experience with similar asteroids indicates that these probabilities usually decrease after more analysis. Precedents There have been cases of asteroids that have reached higher levels on the Torino scale and were subsequently discarded as threats. An example is 99942 apophis, which in 2004 reached level 4 due to a probability of 1.6% impact in 2029, Although subsequent studies eliminated any risk In 2029, 2036 and 2068. Therefore, it is feasible to think that asteroid 2024 YR4 in the future is reclassified at level 0 As their orbital calculations are related. Possible consequences and monitoring. To put ourselves in the worst of the stage, with a possible impact, 2024 YR4 would not represent a global extinction event, but could cause significant damage if impacting a populated area, similar to the famous Tunguska event that swept a vast region in Siberia. Therefore, NASA and other space agencies will continue to track their trajectory and refine the calculations to confirm their destination. Although The American agency has emphasized its statement that the probability of impact is still low (about 1%) and that this type of initial evaluations tend to be corrected over time, also ends up underlining that it will adjust its predictions ensuring that any potential risk is properly evaluated and, if necessary, addressed With planetary defense strategies. Image | POT In Xataka | The biggest object that will happen near Earth is an asteroid that will approximate 32,000 km and can be seen with the naked eye In Xataka | The last asteroid located by NASA, giving up “close” of the Earth: a mole of the size of the giza pyramid

NASA has found molecules linked to life in Bennu samples

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It was left The famous stuck screw In the Bennu Asteroid sampling container. NASA scientists have just published the results of their analysis and are as exciting as the asteroid of 4.5 billion years promised. Osiris-Rex and Asteroid Bennu. Threw in 2016, Osiris-Rex completed one of NASA’s most ambitious missions in recent years. The probe reached an asteroid near the land called Bennu in 2018. He spent several months by making it and analyzing it closely and, finally, descended to touch its surface. Osiris-Rex collected 121.6 grams of Bennu samples in 2020. He then undertook his return trip and, in September 2023, managed to release them successfully on Earth. Is less than expected And, yet, the greatest number of samples brought from another celestial body other than the moon. In addition to a true time capsule due to the age of the asteroid: 4.5 billion years, almost as many as those that the solar system has. What is in Bennu’s samples. Two studies published on Tuesday in Nature and Nature Astronomy They detail the results of the analysis. We can say that the wait has been worth it because those 121.6 grams that Osiris-Rex brought from asteroid bennu They contain essential molecules for lifeas well as the trail of a salty environment that could promote its formation: Amino acids and nucleobases. 14 of the 20 amino acids used by living beings to make proteins, and the five nucleobases that make up DNA and RNA, the genetic codification of life on earth Ammonia and formaldehyde. Ammonia is essential in chemical reactions that generate complex molecules, and formaldehyde can lead to amino acids when combined with ammoniac Salts and salt water. Minerals formed by the evaporation of water with brine, an environment that could be the ideal broth for prebiotic chemistry in the body from which Bennu comes What this finding means. The discovery of all these molecules reinforces the hypothesis that the basic ingredients for life could have spread throughout the solar system at an early age. It is known that the asteroids brought water to the earth, and nothing prevents They will also deliver other essential blocks for life or microbial life itself. Perhaps the conducive conditions for life in many other parts of the solar system will be given. The material from Bennu contains a combination of salts (calcite, halita, trona and silvita) that had only been seen incompletely in some meteorites. It is a clue that the body from which Bennu comes originally Water could contain with the necessary conditions for the development of organic compounds. What this finding does not mean. That the “father” of Asteroid Bennu could have the necessary conditions for life forms to arise does not mean that scientists have discovered life in a body outside the earth. Samples do not contain evidence of living organisms, nor do they confirm in any way the existence of extraterrestrial life. The material, which was formed in a cold region of the solar system beyond Jupiter’s orbit, does not end up solving, but throws some light on the big question: if there are scenarios conducive to life beyond the earth. And no, samples do not have land pollution, as happened with those of the asteroid Ryugu that the Japanese brought in the Hayabusa mission 2. To other asteroids. The laboratories of the Earth are for now the best we have, so none of this would have been possible without a complex sampling recovery mission. Osiris-Rex is the third, after the Japanese Missions Hayabusa. Soon we will see also Tianwen-2, the Chinese mission that will travel to the asteroid 2016 HO3 KAMOʻOALEWA. Images | POT In Xataka | The ship that picked the samples of Bennu now flies towards Apofis, the asteroid that will pass only 38,000 km from the earth

NASA is about to launch two rockets toward the auroras. The objective: understand their hypnotic movements

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The auroras have fascinated those who have observed them for millennia, but they continue to hold all kinds of mysteries. despite current sensors. In order to better understand your blinks and pulses, NASA will fly directly to them from the region of the United States where they appear most frequently. Meanwhile, in Alaska. Although almost all of America’s space activity occurs in warm Florida, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center has everything ready to launch a sounding rocket from Alaska. Delayed on numerous occasions due to bad weather (today they expect snowfall and tomorrow, minimum temperatures of -28 ºC), the launch is scheduled for this week from Poker Flat Research Camp from Fairbanks. A flight to the auroras. The mission is called Ground Imaging to Rocket investigation of Auroral Fast Features (whose acronym is “GIRAFF”but I don’t know who they’re trying to fool, we all know they put the acronym first). The objective is to fly, with separate sounding rockets, to two subtypes of northern lights: Fast-pulsing aurorae, which flicker in a rhythmic pattern of pulsations every second, are related to a type of electromagnetic waves in the magnetosphere called Alfvén waves. Flickering auroras, whose variability is slower and more irregular, and are characterized by flickers in the sky that appear to move or shift according to the flow of charged particles in the magnetosphere Aboard a modified missile. For this mission, NASA will use Black Brant XI sounding rocketswhose first stage is derived from the US Talos naval missile. With three stages of solid fuel, the small rocket is capable of launching a payload of up to 600 kg to a height of 250 kilometers. The GIRAFF mission rockets are equipped with instruments to measure the processes responsible for creating the optical variations in auroras, hypnotic movements observable from Earth that occur at relatively high frequencies of up to 15 Hz or more. The GIRAFF mission. NASA researchers want to understand why some auroras flicker, others pulse, and others appear to have holes. This research focuses on two specific energy coupling mechanisms with such saccharine names as low-altitude electromagnetic ion cyclotron wave-particle interactions and chorus wave modulation in the equatorial magnetosphere. To better understand the mechanisms of these interactions, what better than to fly directly into a flickering aurora and a fast pulsating aurora with two identical rockets? A second mission will launch two more rockets into the dark spots or “holes” of the auroras to better study this other phenomenon. Images | NASA/Lee Wingfield/Sebastian Saarloos In Xataka | This is what the Northern Lights look like from space

Trump has made it very clear that he wants to conquer Mars. Now NASA has the enormous problem of not being called SpaceX

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Trump made just one space promise during his inauguration speech, but it was no small feat. The Martian dream. Between cheers and jumps of enthusiasm of Elon Musk, Donald Trump pointed out Mars as new “manifest destiny” of the United States. The newly inaugurated president promised to take astronauts to the Red Planet and plant the American flag in Martian soil. Trump stated: “We will pursue our manifest destiny to the stars, launching American astronauts to plant the flag on the planet Mars.” His words are not coincidental and have a clear influence, but they seem to mark a change of priorities for NASA that leaves the future of the Artemis lunar program. The influence of Elon Musk. “We’re going straight to Mars, the Moon is a distraction,” wrote the CEO of SpaceX two weeks ago. No one quite understood the scope of that tweet, since SpaceX has a very important contract with NASA to build the lander for the Artemis III and IV lunar missions, but now that message resonates on Capitol Hill. There, President Trump focused on Mars. It could just be a rhetorical statement (slowly, but surely, we have to get to Mars before China does), but with Elon Musk as a key ally, the new government could really be preparing a radical shift in astronautics strategy. The current Artemis program. It was precisely Trump’s first term that shaped NASA’s current lunar program. The then administrator, Jim Bridenstine, managed to put the United States’ return to the Moon on track with an architecture that combined NASA’s internal developments (the SLS rocket and the Orion spacecraft) with commercial spacecraft from private companies (SpaceX’s Starship HLS and the lunar module Blue Moon by Blue Origin). In turn, Bridenstine promoted a series of unmanned lunar missions and the creation of the Artemis Accordswhich already has 53 signatory countries, for international cooperation in future missions to the Moon, including the construction of a lunar base, the commercial exploitation of the satellite and everything that comes after (Mars, comets and asteroids). The Moon is a cruel lover. Artemis is not at her best. Manned missions have been delayed for problems on the Orion ship and delays in Starship development. Furthermore, the insane cost overruns of the SLS rocket have put a good part of public opinion against the current architecture of the program, which could be reconfigured with the support of SpaceX’s new Starship and Blue Origin’s New Glenn rockets. To make matters worse, the first two commercial missions associated with Artemis (CLPS‑1 and CLPS‑2) failed to reach the Moon or lie down when landing on the moonwhich has precipitated the cancellation of other more important missions such as NASA’s VIPER rover. But until Trump’s speech, there was nothing to predict that the Artemis program would be in danger. Is it really? From the Moon to Mars. Until now, NASA’s plan was to establish itself on the Moon throughout this decade and the next (or at least in the Gateway lunar station in orbit with the satellite) to prepare for the jump to Mars in the 2040s. Prioritize the Red Planet I would leave three scenarios to the foreseeable new administrator from NASA, Jared Isaacman: A reduced lunar program, without aspirations to create a large lunar base like the one proposed by the ILRS program led by China. Thus, the United States would continue in the race to put the first woman on the moon without stopping to focus on Mars. In exchange, he would cede lunar land to his opponents A bifurcated program with parallel lunar and Martian missions that do not throw away everything that has been developed so far. It would be the logical step if NASA’s budget were unlimited, but with the huge investment what the lunar program entails, adding a Martian program seems impossible A total redirection to the conquest of Mars. Following Elon Musk’s vision: the Moon is a distraction from the ultimate goal of become a multiplanetary civilization. Even with a majority in Congress, it is the option in which giants such as Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and even New Space lose (Blue Origin has several lunar contracts). It seems complicated for congressmen to agree on a clean slate, but it is not totally impossible How would the United States get to Mars? There would be a public tender, but one option immediately comes to mind. NASA could adopt the SpaceX Mars program as your own. Elon Musk said SpaceX planned to launch five uncrewed Starships to Mars in 2026 and, if they managed to land, the first crewed mission to Mars in history in 2028. The experts agree at a crucial point: a mission with astronauts to Mars in the next four years is technically impossible if it is to be done with guarantees, since the scientific and technological challenges are monumental. But there were also many people convinced that Trump would not win the election again while Musk bet money that yes I would. Image | The White House, NASA In Xataka | Artemis has entered into crisis: NASA remains silent about the Orion spacecraft and rumors of cancellation of the SLS grow

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