Frontiers

The European Space Agency (ESA)’s third European Service Module (ESM-3), for NASA’s Artemis III mission, has departed from the Airbus facility in Bremen, Germany, and will soon leave Europe on its way to the United States. This marks a critical milestone in Europe's continued contribution to humankind’s return to the Moon. 

The space economy is undergoing a remarkable transformation; this explosive growth is creating a significant demand for a larger and more diverse workforce. As the industry continues to expand, it needs talented individuals with expertise in fields like engineering, science, telecommunications, and policy among others. The growing space economy will require more businesses and workers to support research, development, manufacturing, and operations. 

ESA’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) spacecraft has successfully completed a lunar-Earth flyby, using the gravity of Earth to send it Venus-bound, on a shortcut to Jupiter through the inner Solar System. The closest approach to the Moon was at 23:15 CEST (21:15 UTC) on 19 August, guiding Juice towards the closest approach to Earth just over 24 hours later at 23:56 CEST (21:56 UTC) on 20 August.

NASA has awarded a total of $1.25 million to three U.S. teams in the third and final round of its Deep Space Food Challenge. The teams delivered novel food production technologies that could provide long-duration human space exploration missions with safe, nutritious, and tasty food. The competitors’ technologies address NASA’s need for sustainable food systems for long-duration habitation in space, including future Artemis missions and eventual journeys to Mars. Advanced food systems also could benefit life on Earth and inspire food production in parts of the world that are prone to natural disasters, food insecurity, and extreme environments.

Join Torsten Kriening, Publisher at SpaceWatch.Global, in an enlightening conversation with Maxim de Jong and Aaron Kemmer from Max Space. Delve into the groundbreaking technologies behind expandable and inflatable space structures, their applications, and the future of real estate in space. Learn about Max Space's mission to maximize usable space in orbit, from initial small modules to potentially vast habitats in space and on the Moon. This episode explores the challenges and innovations in creating habitable volumes for long-term human presence beyond Earth.

SpaceX has announced Dragon’s sixth commercial astronaut mission, Fram2, which will be the first human spaceflight mission to explore Earth from a polar orbit and fly over the Earth’s polar regions for the first time. SpaceX named the mission in honor of the ship that helped explorers first reach Earth’s Arctic and Antarctic regions. Falcon 9 will consequently launch Fram2 to a polar orbit from Florida no earlier than late 2024.

In episode 113 of the Space Café Podcast, host Markus explores a ground-breaking concept with Dr. Mary Hagedorn, a distinguished researcher at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute. The discussion centers on the ambitious idea of creating a backup of Earth's biodiversity on the Moon.

The European Space Agency's (ESA) Gaia mission has spotted potential moons around more than 350 asteroids not known to have a companion. Previously, Gaia had explored asteroids with moons — so-called ‘binary asteroids’ — and confirmed that the telltale signs of these tiny moons show up in the telescope’s ultra-accurate astrometric data. But this new finding proves that Gaia can conduct ‘blind’ searches to discover completely new candidates, too.

NASA is seeking interest from U.S. communities for partnerships to conduct a Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) mission on the Moon The mission addresses some or all of NASA’s science objectives for VIPER, and potentially also includes other NASA exploration objectives, as well as any partner objectives.

NASA has selected Astrobotic for a Small Business Innovation Research award worth approximately $150k to develop an Extra Large Vertical Solar Array Technology (VSAT-XL) for the Moon. VSAT-XL will consequently be the largest planned lunar power infrastructure technology to date to meet the growing energy demands on the lunar surface. This new array will build on the 10kW lunar VSAT already in development at Astrobotic under an existing NASA contract.