Aerospace
T-Minus Weekly: The end of O2 on Mars and the week’s other big space stories
Freethink's weekly countdown of the biggest developments in space, featuring the launch of XRISM, the end of MOXIE, and more.
NASA finishes the first experiment to make oxygen on Mars
NASA has officially wrapped up the Mars Oxygen ISRU Experiment (MOXIE), which was the first tech to generate oxygen on Mars.
SpinLaunch will hurl payloads into orbit, cutting the cost of launch by 20x
Rockets are big because they require enormous amounts of fuel. SpinLaunch’s method does away with much of that by hurling payloads into space.
NASA is spending $850,000 to make a bag for space trash
TransAstra has secured a $850,000 NASA contract to build an inflatable bag for capturing space trash, which could then be recycled in orbit.
NASA’s next-gen X-ray observatory is ready for launch (Updated)
XRISM is a next-gen X-ray observatory expected to revolutionize our understanding of the universe’s more energetic objects.
New moon map reveals structures hidden beneath the lunar surface
A new moon map that reveals structures hidden deep beneath the lunar surface also helps unravel the mystery of the moon’s past.
India makes history by landing on the lunar south pole
India is the first nation to soft land on the lunar south pole, an elusive region thought to harbor water ice.
A robot pilot is ready to fly a real plane — are you onboard?
PIBOT, a humanoid robot pilot developed in South Korea, is ready to take control of a real plane for the first time.
NASA is sending a team of autonomous robots to the moon
NASA is sending three autonomous mobile robots to the moon where they’ll have to work as a team under challenging conditions.
NASA gives Blue Origin $35 million to turn moon dust into solar cells
A technology that autonomously fabricates solar cells out of lunar regolith just earned Blue Origin a $35 million NASA contract.