Chang'e 4 probe resumes work for 26th lunar day

The lander and rover of the Chang'e-4 probe have resumed work for the 26th lunar day on the far side of the moon. The lander woke up at 3:13 a.m. on Friday (Beijing time), and the rover Yutu-2, or Jade Rabbit-2, woke up at 10:29 a.m. on Thursday, according to the Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center of the China National Space Administration. Landing on the moon on Jan. 3, 2019, the Chang'e-4 probe has survived 736 Earth days on the moon. A lunar day is equal to about 14 days on Earth, and a lunar night is of the same length. The solar-powered probe switches to dormant mode during the lunar night. During the 26th lunar day, Yutu-2 will move northwest toward the basalt area or the impact craters with high reflectivity. Yutu-2 will take panoramic photos, and its infrared imaging spectrometer, neutral atom detector and lunar radar will continue to carry out scientific explorations. Research teams will analyze the detection data and release the scientific results.

Seven things to know about the NASA rover about to land on Mars

With only about 50 million miles (80 million kilometers) left to go in its 293-million-mile (471-million-kilometer) journey, NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover is nearing its new planetary home. The spacecraft has begun its approach to the Red Planet and in 43 days, on Feb. 18, 2021, Perseverance will blaze through Mars' atmosphere at about 12,100 mph (19,500 kph), touching down gently on the surface about seven minutes later. "We're working on our last adjustments to put Perseverance in perfect position to land in one of the most interesting places on Mars," said Fernando Abilleira, deputy mission manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. "The team can't wait to put these wheels in some Martian dirt." Built and managed by JPL for NASA, Perseverance will be joining another rover and lander currently at work on Mars, with several orbiters in the skies above. What sets this six-wheeled robot apart?

1. Perseverance is searching for signs of ancient life.


While the surface of Mars is a frozen desert today, scientists have learned from previous NASA missions that the Red Planet once hosted running water and warmer environments at the surface that could have supported microbial life.

"We want Perseverance to help us answer the next logical question: Are there actually signs of past microbial life on Mars?" said Katie Stack Morgan, deputy project scientist at JPL. "This demanding goal means sending the most sophisticated robotic scientist yet to Mars."

To tackle this question, which is key in the field of astrobiology, Perseverance carries a new suite of cutting-edge science instruments. Two of them will play a particularly important role in the search for potential signs of past life: SHERLOC (short for Scanning Habitable Environments with Raman and Luminescence for Organics and Chemicals), which can detect organic matter and minerals, and PIXL (short for Planetary Instrument for X-ray Lithochemistry), which maps the chemical composition of rocks and sediments. The instruments will allow scientists to analyze these features together at a higher level of detail than any Mars rover has achieved before.

Perseverance will also use some instruments to gather science data from a distance: Mastcam-Z's cameras can zoom in on rock textures from as far away as a soccer field, while SuperCam will use a laser to zap rock and regolith (broken rock and dust) to study their composition in the resulting vapor. RIMFAX (short for Radar Imager for Mars' Subsurface Experiment) will use radar waves to probe geological features underground.

2. The rover is landing in a place with a high potential for finding these signs of past microbial life.


Terrain that is interesting to scientists can be challenging to land on. Thanks to new technologies that enable Perseverance to target its landing site more accurately and to autonomously avoid landing hazards, the spacecraft can safely touch down in a place as intriguing as Jezero Crater, a 28-mile-wide (45-kilometer-wide) basin that has steep cliffs, sand dunes, and boulder fields.

More than 3.5 billion years ago, a river there flowed into a body of water about the size of Lake Tahoe, depositing sediments in a fan shape known as a delta. The Perseverance science team believes this ancient river delta and lake deposits could have collected and preserved organic molecules and other potential signs of microbial life.

3. Perseverance is also collecting important data about Mars' geology and climate.

Context is everything. Mars orbiters have been collecting images and data from Jezero Crater from about 200 miles (322 kilometers) above, but finding signs of ancient life on the surface requires much closer inspection. It requires a rover like Perseverance.

Understanding Mars' past climate conditions and reading the geological history embedded in its rocks will give scientists a richer sense of what the planet was like in its distant past. Studying the Red Planet's geology and climate could also give us a sense of why Earth and Mars - despite some early similarities - ended up so different.

4. Perseverance is the first leg of a round trip to Mars.


The verification of ancient life on Mars carries an enormous burden of proof. Perseverance is the first rover to bring a sample caching system to Mars in order to package promising samples for return to Earth by a future mission.

Rather than pulverizing rock the way the drill on NASA's Curiosity rover does, Perseverance's drill will cut intact rock cores that are about the size of a piece of chalk and will place them in sample tubes that it will store until the rover reaches an appropriate drop-off location on Mars. The rover could also potentially deliver the samples to a lander that is part of the planned Mars sample return campaign by NASA and ESA (the European Space Agency).

Once the samples are here on Earth, we can examine them with instruments too large and complex to send to Mars, providing far more information about them than even the most sophisticated rover could.

5. Perseverance carries instruments and technology that will help pave the way for human missions to the Moon and Mars.


Among the future-looking technologies on this mission that will benefit human exploration is Terrain-Relative Navigation. As part of the spacecraft's landing system, Terrain-Relative Navigation will enable the descending spacecraft to quickly and autonomously comprehend its location over the Martian surface and modify its trajectory.

Perseverance will also have more autonomy on the surface than any other rover, including self-driving smarts that will allow it to cover more ground in a day's operations with fewer instructions from engineers on Earth. This fast-traverse capability will make exploration of the Moon, Mars, and other celestial bodies more efficient for other vehicles.

In addition, Perseverance carries a technology experiment called MOXIE (short for Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment) that will produce oxygen from Mars' carbon dioxide atmosphere. It will demonstrate a way that future explorers might produce oxygen for rocket propellant as well as for breathing.

Two other instruments will help engineers design systems for future human explorers to land and survive on Mars: The MEDLI2 (Mars Entry, Descent, and Landing Instrumentation 2) package is a next-generation version of what flew on the Mars Science Laboratory mission that delivered the Curiosity rover, while the MEDA (Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer) instrument suite provides information about weather, climate, and surface ultraviolet radiation and dust.

Perseverance is also giving a ride to the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter. A technology experiment separate from the rover's science mission, Ingenuity will attempt the first powered, controlled aircraft flight at another world. If the helicopter is successful in its 30-Martian-day (31-Earth-day) demonstration window, the data could help future explorations of the Red Planet - including those by astronauts - by adding a new aerial dimension.

6. The Perseverance rover embodies the NASA - and the scientific - spirit of overcoming challenges.

Getting the spacecraft to the launch pad during a pandemic, searching for signs of ancient life, collecting samples, and proving new technologies are no easy feats. Nor is a soft touchdown on Mars: Only about 50% of Martian landing attempts, by any space agency, have been successful.

The mission team draws inspiration from the name of its rover, with particular awareness of the challenges the entire world is experiencing at this time. With that in mind, the mission installed a special plate to honor the dedication and hard work of the medical community and first responders around the globe. The team hopes to inspire the entire world, and future explorers, to forge new paths and make discoveries on which the next generation can build.

7. You will get to ride along.

The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission carries more cameras than any interplanetary mission in history, with 19 cameras on the rover itself and four on other parts of the spacecraft involved in entry, descent, and landing. As with previous Mars missions, the Mars 2020 Perseverance mission plans to make raw and processed images available on the mission's website.

If all goes well, the public will be able to experience in high-definition what it's like to land on Mars - and hear the sounds of landing for the first time with an off-the-shelf microphone affixed to the side of the rover. Another microphone on SuperCam will help scientists understand the property of rocks the instrument is examining and can also listen to the wind.

If you are among the 10.9 million people who signed up to send your name to Mars, your name is stenciled on one of three silicon chips embedded on a plate on the rover that carries the words "Explore as one" in Morse code.

Houston Spaceport aims to be first commercial space station builder

Houston Spaceport, the nation's 10th commercially licensed Spaceport, will be home to the world's first commercial space station builder, Axiom Space. The aerospace company announced plans to create a 14-acre headquarters campus to train private astronauts and begin production of its Axiom Station-the world's first free-flying, internationally available private space station that will serve as humanity's central hub for research, manufacturing and commerce in low Earth orbit. "While we have confronted the challenges of a global pandemic this year, our work to move our city forward never stops. This announcement is another leap that demonstrates how Houston embraces humankind's boldest challenges and lives-up to every bit of its namesake - The Space City," Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said. "With Axiom Space at the Houston Spaceport, we expect to energize our workforce by adding more than a thousand high-quality jobs and engage our communities that are focused and dedicated to the STEM fields." The new Axiom Space Headquarters campus will be located in phase one of the 400 acres Houston Spaceport at Ellington Airport, EFD. The first phase, 153 acres, was completed in December and includes vital infrastructure like streets, utilities, robust communications systems. The Houston Spaceport is ideally located minutes from downtown Houston. "We had a vision of Houston Spaceport bringing together a cluster of aviation and aerospace enterprises that would support the future of commercial spaceflight," Houston Airports Aviation Director Mario Diaz said. "Today, we have an urban center for collaboration and ideation, a place where the brightest minds in the world can work closely together to lead us into the next frontier of space exploration."

Axiom Space's Houston Spaceport headquarters campus will include the construction of approximately 322,000 square feet of facility space to accommodate Axiom Station modules and terminal building space to house private astronauts, operations, engineering and other requirements. The campus will have ease of access to the Ellington airfield.

"Houston Spaceport represents an ideal headquarters location with its infrastructure and benefits as well as its co-location at Ellington Airport," Axiom Space CEO Mike Suffredini said. "The opportunity to build high-bay hangars where we can assemble the Axiom Station while simultaneously training our private astronauts for missions gives us the flexibility we need as we build the future of commercial space."

The development is estimated to bring more than a thousand jobs to Houston, which already has one of the highest concentrations of engineering talent in the nation. Johnson Space Center, which employs more than 11,000 people and utilizes airfields at Ellington Airport, is just minutes from the Houston Spaceport.

"Axiom Space's announcement is a game-changer for Houston as we extend our position as a commercial aerospace leader," President and CEO of the Greater Houston Partnership, the economic development organization serving the Greater Houston area, Bob Harvey said.

"Houston is a city built on innovation with a technology-focused workforce, and this move adds to the region's momentum as one of the country's leading next-generation tech hubs."

One of Houston Spaceport's tenants includes Intuitive Machines, a private company that secured a NASA contract to build the NOVA-C Spacecraft, a nearly 13-foot lunar lander that will deliver cargo to the moon in 2021. San Jacinto College has also invested in building its Edge Center, the official education partner for Houston Spaceport that offers aerospace training and career pathways for students.

"The same great environment that produced so many technological advancements in Houston's past is, once again, creating its next successful venture into space - Axiom Station - the world's first commercial space station," President of the Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership Bob Mitchell said.

"The synergies now being realized at the Houston Spaceport - between Houston's dynamic industry partners, its world class training and academic providers, and its far-sighted community investors - are not only benefitting Axiom but will only get stronger over time. We are all in this together and the best is yet to come!"

Danes staying in origami-inspired 'Lunar' camp in Greenland end their mission

The two architects built the foldable futuristic-looking shelter as part of an experiment to establish whether ordinary people without training could survive in harsh conditions, including those on the Moon. Danish "space architects" Sebastian Aristotelis and Karl-Johan Sorensen have wrapped up their mission in Greenland aimed at testing a "Lunark" shelter - an origami-inspired camp designed to withstand lunar conditions. The shelter weighing 1,700 kilogrammes was designed by the SAGA Space Architects where Aristotelis and Sorensen are employees. The habitat can be folded so as to fit in a space rocket without occupying much space. It is also designed to weather temperatures as low as -45 Celsius and wind speeds up to 89 kilometres per hour. The intrepid Danes spent two months in the collapsible shelter in Greenland's uninhabited central region, surviving on protein shakes and water obtained from thawed ice. Heralding the possible era of space tourism, the experiment sought to find out how feasible it is to live in such a shelter in hostile environments. "We are civilians and if we are looking at a future with more civilians in space, that's one of the most important things for us as architects to figure out", Aristotelis told MailOnline upon returing to Copenhagen.

Lunar gold rush could create conflict on the ground if we don't act now

When it comes to the Moon, everyone wants the same things. Not in the sense of having shared goals, but in the sense that all players target the same strategic sites - state agencies and the private sector alike. That's because, whether you want to do science or make money, you will need things such as water and light. Many countries and private companies have ambitious plans to explore or mine the Moon. This won't be at some remote point in time but soon - even in this decade. As Martin Elvis, Alanna Krolikowski and I set out in a recent paper, published in the Transactions of the Royal Society, this will spark tension on the ground unless we find ways to manage the situation imminently. So far, much of the debate around exploring and mining the Moon has focused on tensions in space between state agencies and the private sector. But as we see it, the pressing challenge arises from limited strategic resources. Important sites for science are also important for infrastructure construction by state agencies or commercial users. Such sites include "peaks of eternal light" (where there is almost constant sunlight, and hence access to power), and continually shaded craters at the polar regions, where there's water ice. Each is rare, and the combination of the two - ice on the crater floor and a narrow peak of eternal light on the crater rim - is a prized target for different players. But they occur only in polar regions, rather than at the equatorial sites targeted by the Apollo programme in the 1960s and 1970s.

The recent successful landing of Chang'e 5 by China targeted a relatively smooth landing site on the lunar nearside, but it is part of a larger, phased programme due to take China's space agency down to the lunar south pole by 2024.

India tried a more direct polar route, with its failed Chandrayaan-2 lander crashing in the same region in 2019. The Russian Roscosmos, collaborating with the European Space Agency, is also targeting the south polar region for landings late in 2021 and, in 2023, at Boguslavsky crater, as a test mission. Next, Roscosmos will aim for the Aitken Basin in the same region in 2022 on the to prospect for water in permanently shadowed areas. A number of private companies also have ambitious plans for mining the Moon for resources.

Strategic resources that aren't in the polar regions tend to be concentrated rather than evenly distributed. Thorium and uranium, which could be used for radioactive fuel, are found together in 34 regions that are areas of less than 80km wide. Iron resulting from asteroid impacts can be found within broader territories, ranging from 30-300km across, but there are only around 20 such areas.

And then there is the poster boy of lunar resources, mined in dozens of science fiction films: Helium-3, for nuclear fusion. Seeded by the Sun in the powdery crushed rock of the lunar surface, it is present in wide areas across the Moon, but the highest concentrations are found in only about eight regions, all relatively small (less than 50km across).

These materials will be of interest both to those trying to establish infrastructure on the Moon and are later targeting Mars as well as commercial exploitation (mining), or science - for example creating telescopic arrays on the lunar far side, away from the growing noise of human communications.

How then do we deal with the problem? The Outer Space Treaty (1967) holds that "the exploration and use of outer space shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries and shall be the province of all mankind." States do not get to claim parts of the Moon as property, but they can still use them. Where this leaves disputes and extraction by private companies is unclear.

Proposed successors to the treatment, such as the Moon Agreement (1979), are seen as too restrictive, requiring a formal framework of laws and an ambitious international regulatory regime. The agreement has failed to gain support among key players, including the US, Russia and China. More recent steps, such as the Artemis Accords - a set of guidelines surrounding the Artemis Program for crewed exploration of the Moon - are perceived as heavily tied to the US programme.

In the worst case, this lack of framework could lead to heightened tensions on Earth. But it could also create unnecessary duplication of infrastructure, with everyone building their own stuff. That would drive up costs for individual organisations, which they would then have reasons to try to recoup in ways that could compromise opportunities for science and the legacy we leave for future generations.

Ways forward
Our best initial response may be modest, taking its cue from overlooked sites on Earth. Small terrestrial resource pools, such as lakes bordered by several villages, or fish stocks are often managed through approaches developed locally by the key players involved.

These suggest that a first step toward lunar-resource governance will be creating agreement among users. This should focus on the nature of the resources at stake, how their benefits should be distributed, and, crucially, the worst-case scenarios they seek to avoid. For example, actors will likely need to decide whether the peaks of eternal light should be managed as a patch of high-value real estate or as a volume of energy output to be shared. It may also be worth deciding on a case-by-case basis.

Another challenge will be fostering compliance with the governance arrangements that are devised. To that end, lunar users would be well advised to build shared installations, such as landing and supply facilities, to function as carrots that can be withheld from misbehaving actors. Such partial solutions will be difficult to add after a country or company has made irreversible investments in mission designs. Clearly, the time to devise these approaches is now.