Artemis

This weekend China sends its most complicated Moon mission yet toward the one patch of lunar ground everyone now wants. The launch window for Chang’e 7 opens on the morning of August 24 Beijing time (late Sunday, August 23, in the Americas) on a Long March 5 out of Wenchang. Sitting on top isn’t one spacecraft but four: an orbiter, a lander, a rover, and a six-legged robot built to jump into craters that haven’t seen sunlight in billions of years and drill for ice. ...

On May 26, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman stood at agency headquarters in Washington and gave the lunar program something it hasn’t had before: a name with “base” in it. The program is called Moon Base. Three uncrewed landers are targeting the lunar south pole before the end of 2026. Behind them, $440 million in contracts for two crewed rovers. Behind that, a phased timeline stretching into the 2030s for power grids, hopping drones, and eventually semi-permanent crew presence. ...