January 17, 2025

This Week in Space 144: The Great Lunar Armada

1 hour 15 minutes

2025 is the year that introduces the Great Lunar Armada! A small fleet of private and publicly-funded orbiters, landers, and rovers are heading off to explore Luna Incognita this year, and it will only speed up after that. We also look at the recent Starship test flight number seven—which ended in the total loss of the Starship upper stage—and the inaugural flight of Blue Origin's New Glenn mega-rocket, which flew successfully but did not manage to land on the recovery ship. Plus, our usual space dad joke and an update on the LA fires' impact on NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and how you can help.

Headlines:

• SpaceX's Starship test flight experiences partial success with booster catch but an explosive ending for the upper stage

• Blue Origin successfully launches its New Glenn rocket, marking a major milestone for the company

• India demonstrates automated docking capability in space with the SPADEX mission, crucial for future lunar exploration plans

• Wildfires in Los Angeles cause extensive damage, impacting the community around NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)

Main Topic: The Great Lunar Armada

• Overview of recent lunar missions launched by private companies and national space agencies

• Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost lander, carrying various scientific payloads, aims to study the lunar surface and test new technologies

• ispace's Hakuto-R mission, featuring a lunar lander and rover, will explore the moon and test in-situ resource utilization techniques

• Intuitive Machines' Nova-C lander, equipped with a drill and other scientific instruments, targets the lunar south pole

• Retrospective on previous private lunar missions, including SpaceIL's Beresheet lander and the defunct Google Lunar XPrize

• China's steady progress in lunar exploration, with plans for the International Lunar Research Station in collaboration with Russia

• Russia's setbacks and reduced budget for lunar missions and the failed mission of Luna 25

• India's advancements in space technology and plans for a robotic lunar sample return mission

• The crew express excitement about the rapid pace of lunar exploration and the potential for groundbreaking discoveries in the near future

Hosts: Rod Pyle and Tariq Malik

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