NASA used its inaugural Max Power aerospace expo at Kennedy Space Center to update plans for its Ignition initiative, which aims to establish a lunar base by 2032. Announcements included a new CLPS 2 contract for cargo landers, a nuclear-powered lunar rover, and other infrastructure, with companies like Blue Origin, SpaceX, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman involved. NASA also linked the effort to the Artemis program, whose third crewed mission is planned for 2027 with a lunar landing targeted for 2028.
cnet.com
· 2026-11-10
NASA detailed updated plans for returning astronauts to the Moon, confirming changes to how Orion will interact with SpaceX's Starship and Blue Origin's Blue Moon landers. Orion will now dock with Starship in high-Earth orbit rather than near the Moon, while Blue Origin's plan uses four New Glenn launches without orbital refueling and allows Blue Moon to meet Orion in low-lunar orbit. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said the agency still targets a demonstration mission by summer 2027 and a crewed lunar landing by 2028.
arstechnica.com
· 2026-10-23
At a quarterly meeting of NASA's Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, member Charlie Precourt cited a new estimate that roughly 22 Starship launches would be required to fuel SpaceX's lunar lander for a single Artemis Moon mission. NASA has historically avoided confirming an exact figure, with earlier officials giving ranges from 'high single digits to low double digits' up to 'high teens.'
arstechnica.com
· 2026-10-22
Patriots quarterback Drake Maye said in a Monday media appearance that he was skeptical the US actually landed on the Moon, citing a conspiracy-theory class he took at UNC. NASA administrator Jared Isaacman responded on social media, saying he has 'the receipts' proving the landings happened.
futurism.com
· 2026-10-08
Blue Origin has revealed a concept called the Power Tower, a 20-meter solar array designed to deploy vertically after landing on the Moon and generate more than 10 kilowatts of electricity. The company says the system targets Moon Base operations near the lunar south pole, the region NASA's Artemis program is focused on, though no flight date has been announced. An animation shows the tower's mast rising and arms unfolding to position solar panels after landing.
techspot.com
· 2026-10-05
NASA and IBM have jointly released the Lunar Foundation Model, an AI system trained on decades of lunar observation data, now freely available on Hugging Face. Built alongside what the two say is the first open-source dataset combining imagery from nine instruments across four moon missions, the model is designed to support NASA's Artemis program.
cnet.com
· 2026-09-10
NASA has directed Axiom Space to develop a lighter, less complex spacesuit variant called the Sortie Suit for the first crewed Artemis lunar landings, aiming to hit a 2028 target date at the Moon's South Pole. The decision, announced internally by Artemis Program Manager Jeremy Parsons, will see the simplified suit used on both SpaceX and Blue Origin landers, cutting mass and easing integration with the spacecraft.
arstechnica.com
· 2026-09-02
NASA has repainted one of its T-38 supersonic training jets with a new black-and-white design featuring blue and red stripes, the Artemis program logo, and Moon graphics on the rear fuselage. The design, proposed by pilot Sean Brady of the Aircraft Operations Division at Johnson Space Center, was applied during the jet's scheduled repainting rather than for any special ceremony. The aircraft, tail number N924NA, is now the only one of NASA's 14 active T-38s that doesn't wear the agency's traditional blue-stripe livery.
arstechnica.com
· 2026-08-27
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