Carnegie geochemist Erik Hauri, whose work upended our understanding of the Moon’s formation and the importance of water in Earth’s interior, died Wednesday in North Potomac, Maryland, following a battle with cancer. He was 52. Hauri joined Carnegie as a staff scientist in 1994 and spent nearly 25 years investigating the geochemistry of the Earth, …Read More
In the darkest and coldest parts of its polar regions, a team of scientists has directly observed definitive evidence of water ice on the Moon’s surface. These ice deposits are patchily distributed and could possibly be ancient. At the southern pole, most of the ice is concentrated at lunar craters, while the northern pole’s ice …Read More
Extended crewed missions to the Moon or Mars begin with finding a water supply. To access that water, NASA will require new technologies to mine through various layers of lunar or Martian soil and into ice deposits buried beneath. NASA is working with the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA) in Hampton, Virginia to sponsor the …Read More
A Southwest Research Institute scientist with expertise in how water reacts with lunar soil contributed to a new study that indicates water and/or hydroxyl may be more prevalent on the Moon’s surface than previously thought. “Water on the Moon is of intense interest for many reasons,” said SwRI’s Dr. Michael Poston, a coauthor of the …Read More
Thorsten Denk’s paper Design and Test of a Concentrated Solar Powered Fluidized Bed Reactor for Ilmenite Reduction was presented at the 23rd Annual SolarPACES Conference in Chile. (Thorsten Denk – Presentation (pdf) Working over a ten year period at the Plataforma Solar de Almeria (CIEMAT) Denk has designed and built a device to make enough …Read More
In research that may prove useful to future lunar explorers, scientists from Brown University have created the first quantitative map of water and its chemical building blocks trapped in the uppermost portion of the Moon’s soil. The study, published in Science Advances, builds on the initial discovery in 2009 of water and a related molecule …Read More
Colorado School of Mines could soon be preparing the next generation of scientists and engineers to responsibly explore, extract and use resources not only on Earth but also on the Moon, Mars, asteroids and beyond. Mines is planning to launch a first-of-its-kind interdisciplinary graduate program in space resources in 2018. The first course, Space Resources …Read More
A new study of satellite data finds that numerous volcanic deposits distributed across the surface of the Moon contain unusually high amounts of trapped water compared with surrounding terrains. The finding of water in these ancient deposits, which are believed to consist of glass beads formed by the explosive eruption of magma coming from the …Read More
NASA has issued a Request for Information (RFI) seeking ideas from industry for the agency to possibly participate in existing or future uncrewed commercial missions to the moon. NASA is interested in assessing the availability of a commercial launch from Earth to the lunar surface to provide landing services as early as Fiscal Year 2018, …Read More
NASA is soliciting proposals for scientific instruments that might reveal answers about lunar resources that could support the agency’s journey to Mars. NASA would sponsor the instruments to fly on a lunar orbiter designed by the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI). The spacecraft, the Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (KPLO), is scheduled to launch in December …Read More