artemis

The Artemis II and III missions slated to return US astronauts to the Moon have been set back. At a press conference, NASA officials said that problems with the heat shield and life support systems would delay the launches until 2026 and 2027.

In one of the strangest partnerships we've come across, Axiom Space and Prada (yes, that Prada) have teamed up to produce the space suits NASA astronauts will wear when they return to the Moon as part of the space agency's Artemis program.

Honeybee Robotics has outlined a plan to build a kind of power grid on the Moon, with a network of Statue of Liberty-sized towers containing solar panels and batteries that provide power and communications, and even act as streetlights.

When you live on the Moon, your only option for commuting back to Earth or on to Mars will be some kind of rocket. But each launch will kick up a hellstorm of debris. Building walls to contain the mess could be a perfect job for autonomous rovers.

Future Moon bases may be a bit tidier thanks to an electric shield that protects equipment from destructive lunar dust. NASA's Electrodynamic Dust Shield (EDS) technology promises to tame the destructive dust that clings to equipment.

NASA has selected three companies to develop extreme off-road vehicles that astronauts will drive on the Moon during Artemis missions starting in 2030, awarding US$4.6 billion in contracts to Intuitive Machines, Lunar Outpost and Venturi Astrolab.

Tackling one of the unsung but absolutely necessary tasks of Moon exploration, NASA and SpaceX are doing intensive testing of the docking mechanism that will be used to transfer astronauts from Artemis to the Starship Human Landing System.

NASA's next Moon landing may have been put back a year, but that hasn't stopped Axiom from showing off the practical version of its Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit (AxEMU). Better known as a space suit, it will protect next-gen Moonwalkers.

NASA announced today that its next two crewed Artemis missions to the Moon have been set back at least a year. The Artemis II lunar orbiter mission will now launch in September 2025 and the Artemis III lander mission is set for September 2026.

France and Italy are teaming up to build a habitat for future moon bases with Franco-Italian technology company Thales Alenia Space and the Italian Space Agency (ASI) signing a contract to develop the Multi-Purpose Habitat for NASA's Artemis project.

In anticipation of a photographic bonanza, NASA and ESA are testing the new Handheld Universal Lunar Camera (HULC), which will be carried by future astronauts to record their adventures in images and video when they return to the Moon in a few years.

Last year, we heard how NASA had awarded a service contract to Axiom Space for the design and production of the agency's Artemis III spacesuit. NASA and Axiom have now unveiled a prototype of the outfit.