NASA Helps with Mining the Moon

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): A false-color composite picture of the Moon taken through three color filters on NASA’s Galileo solid-state imaging system. (NASA)

While everyone was staring up at the dark Moon covering the bright sun during today’s eclipse, NASA was busy chatting about new ways to view the Moon. The image above is one of many that can be created using NASA data to assist commercial companies trying to understand the lunar terrain while looking for useful minerals.

The accompanying NASA story includes comments from multiple commercial companies eyeing the Moon’s resources.

Blair DeWitt, CEO of Lunar Station, stated:

We can find sites for landing pads, for cultivating the best paths for roving, and inform our clients about communications. If you can’t see Earth at a given location like in the polar regions or the far side of the Moon, you have to come up with a relay strategy…We can do this in part thanks to NASA data.

We can assume the Chinese are doing the same for their own commercial sector, though NASA has more data going back decades. Even so, China already has rocks from the far side of the Moon, which is a feat that not even NASA achieved. And not to be outdone, just last week China released its own comprehensive geological map of the Moon.

As with everything else pertaining to the Moon, the race is on.

Space Quote: LINK May Still Be in the Game

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): The LINK spacecraft with a deployed solar array in Earth orbit. (Katalyst Space)

“LINK originally was in a multi-axis spin rotating at about 9 degrees per second, which resulted in sporadic communications and impeded LINK’s progress toward Swift. Using a series of burns from one of LINK’s electric propulsion thrusters, the Katalyst team now has slowed that spin to about 1.47 degrees per second. Katalyst plans to keep LINK at that spin rate as it proceeds with next steps for the mission. This includes uploading a flight software update in the coming days with new attitude controllers designed to maintain LINK’s stability in its current configuration. These updates would allow LINK to begin maneuvering to align with Swift’s orbit.”

-Statement by NASA on August 6, 2026 regarding efforts to resolve issues with the LINK spacecraft sent to boost the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory to a higher orbital altitude. Launched on July 3, the spacecraft began to spin in space around July 25, which led to a temporary loss of contact with the ground crew. If all goes well, LINK could reach the observatory before the end of August.

Video: NASA’s Progress with Phase 1 of the Moon Base

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): An artist’s rending of NASA efforts to create a permanent Moon Base. (NASA)

NASA is quickly learning that it needs to get out front with its own PR to promote efforts to build a Moon base near the lunar South Pole. With budget cuts always looming in the background, public support will be essential to ensure the US has a long-term presence on the Moon.

This latest video from NASA does a good job explaining the status of the various vendors creating landers and rovers for phase 1 of the Moon base, which extends to 2029. This phase will be limited to robotics preparing the lunar surface for later astronauts. The video covers the efforts of Blue Origin, Firefly Aerospace, Intuitive Machines, Voyager Lunar Systems, and Northrop Grumman.

The video is a helpful way to keep the public informed, but the best publicity will be success. The lunar landings to date by commercial partners have been mostly disappointing. The success of these upcoming missions is what will convince the public that we can really settle on the Moon.

Podcast: AI Data Centers in Space

Posted on by onespaceman2000

If you are following the debate about whether data centers belong in orbit, this Freakonomics Radio podcast titled “Should A.I. Move to Space?” may be for you.

Guest host Steve Levitt talks to a number of experts about the role of AI in our economy. I recommend listing to all of the podcast since much of it touches on the logistics of data centers in orbit, but it is the later part of the podcast involving a discussion with Will Marshall, co-founder and C.E.O. of Planet Labs, that peaked my attention. He discusses both the role of Planet Labs as its satellites monitors every corner of the Earth’s surface as well as the need for AI data centers in space.

In terms of the Planet Lab satellites, I found his most intriguing statements were related to the reduced costs of satellites. While most of the stories in the press seem to be about the decrease in rocket costs, Mr. Marshall said the real transformation is the miniaturization of satellites. Even under the earlier rocket system (pre-SpaceX), the drop in satellite costs due to smaller satellites would have been incredible.

In the quote below, Mr. Marshall is referring initially to the lower rocket costs, but then he expands into the real cost saving:

But remember even a four or five x reduction in cost, which really helps the whole space industry and has helped spawn it, is less significant, purely from an economic standpoint, than the 100 to a 1,000x improvement in cost performance of satellites that are going in. So, in each kilogram that you put up into space, if you can get a hundred times more data, because you’ve made the satellite way smaller, then you have won big time, even if the launch cost didn’t change one iota.

In his discussion about AI data centers, Mr. Marshall also has a unique view about the role of the Earth’s surface versus space:

I think it’s inevitable that, within a 10-ish year timeframe, most computers being built on the Earth will be going to space. I actually think not only is it going to be economically cheaper, but it’s going to be more sustainable. Earth’s life is so precious, it’s incredible, but yet we’re whittling away a lot of it. We’re doing deforestation for lithium, for cows, for whatever, we’re doing it. And we need to put our energy-intensive infrastructure into orbit, if we can, to not have a collision course with the biodiversity on the planet,

The podcast episode is in two parts, so be sure to listen to the second part when it comes out.

Space Quote: Two Spacecraft Are Now Imperiled

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Image (Credit): Artist’s rendering of the LINK spacecraft in the Pegasus XL Rocket after launch. (Northrop Grumman)

“Over the weekend, Katalyst’s LINK servicing spacecraft experienced issues with attitude control, causing the spacecraft to spin and resulting in sporadic communications. Preliminary investigation shows that two of LINK’s three reaction wheels currently are not operable, and there is some loss of functionality in its cold gas thruster system. LINK is designed to approach, capture, and boost NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory to a higher orbital altitude.”

-Statement by NASA regarding the private sector LINK mission to save the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, which is slowly losing altitude and is expected to burn up in the atmosphere by year’s end if nothing is done. The LINK mission was launched from the Marshall Islands on July 3rd aboard a Pegasus rocket.