Moon Monday #255: Capturing the state of the world’s lunar exploration efforts this year.
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• Jatan Mehta
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ISRO and India had a mixed year in space in 2025
Indian Space Progress #34: An honest review of the country’s space activities this year
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• Jatan Mehta
Moon Monday #254: The one following last week’s embarrassing typo
What could’ve been the real headline instead: Lunar mission updates and India’s ultimate Moonshot.
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• Jatan Mehta
A space program can only move as swiftly as its rockets. It’s India’s time to act on that.
Indian Space Progress #33: A review of the state of ISRO’s orbital launch vehicles reveals a bleak picture of ambitious goals sliding to the right—in stark contrast to the incessant chest thumping about efficiency.
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• Jatan Mehta
Moon Monday #253: A peek at new lunar samples and mission updates
Here is a peek at some lunar samples from China’s Chang’e 5 nearside landing mission as well as the Chang’e 6 farside one! Holding them is an incredible feeling that vividly reminds you of the immense and irreplaceable value of exploring our Moon. 🌙
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• Jatan Mehta
Lunar sample science updates straight from Hong Kong | Moon Monday #252
A volcano of new results which have improved our understanding of our cosmic companion.
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• Jatan Mehta
Moon Monday #251: Prepping to live on Luna via analogs on Earth
Plus mission updates and more memes.
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• Jatan Mehta
Celebrating 5 years and 10,000 subscribers of Moon Monday with globally published poetry on space
It also lays the foundation for the next phase in my space writing: Merge the worlds of blogs and books.
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• Jatan Mehta
Moon Monday #250: One small step, mission updates, and a much needed giant leap
Welcome to the 250th edition of my Moon Monday blog+newsletter! 🚀🌕
One small step: About two months ago, Moon Monday crossed 10,000 subscribers. I did not announce it until now because I wanted to celebrate it in some way. Having readers and supporters be truly
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A giant leap in orbital imagery is what we need to realize advanced Moon missions
At over 1.6 petabytes, NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) mission hosts by far the largest dataset from any planetary science spacecraft ever launched. LRO’s high-resolution lunar imagery and topographic data has been
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• Jatan Mehta
Moon Monday #249: The one published on Sunday
Mission updates from China and the US.
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• Jatan Mehta
Moon Monday #248: The one that starts with a meme
China preps complex Chang’e 7 mission to study lunar water while US Artemis III rejigs.
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• Jatan Mehta
Shedding light on solar activity and the Moon’s exosphere—a Diwali gift from Chandrayaan 2
Moon Monday #247 and Indian Space Progress #32
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• Jatan Mehta
An assortment of lunar papers from around the world | Moon Monday #246
Like Moon-made M&Ms. 🍬😋
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• Jatan Mehta
Moon Monday #245: Blue origin to hunt for a lunar oasis
Plus mission updates.
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• Jatan Mehta
Moon Monday #244: Towards lunar construction
Before we begin, a clarifying note about the title of the previous Moon Monday: An Amazon delivery for NASA’s VIPER rover? Well, I’ve received many emails saying how Amazon has a distinct space entity from Blue Origin. It’s fair to point that out but
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• Jatan Mehta
Moon Monday #243: An Amazon delivery for NASA’s VIPER rover?
Plus Chandrayaan 3 research updates and more.
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• Jatan Mehta
Verses: Hope in desolation
Space just desolate…and yet humans launch hopeto explore some more
Image: Xinhua | See the first note at the end
On our Moonfrom where the Sun never shines,a new era will dawn.
The rim of the 10-kilometer-wide Erlanger crater on the Moon’s north pole.
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• Jatan Mehta
Moon Monday #242: Artemis II advances, and so does Long March 10 🔥
Plus mission updates.
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• Jatan Mehta
We’re building future technologies for the Moon without closing missed milestones
A review of upcoming and past lunar missions of this decade shows a wide gap between notions of technological progress versus achieved reality.
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• Jatan Mehta
Chandrayaan 4 will bring unique Moon materials—and maybe a giant scientific leap for India
Moon Monday #241 and Indian Space Progress #31
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• Jatan Mehta
No, Starship’s latest success doesn’t favor the US over China in landing humans on Luna | Moon Monday #240
Plus mission updates.
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• Jatan Mehta
Our Moon is valuable even beyond itself | Moon Monday #239
And how science does not exist in a (lunar) vacuum.
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• Jatan Mehta
Moon Monday #238: The long march to Luna continues
Plus Artemis updates.
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• Jatan Mehta
Notable nuances about NISAR and how it flows into planetary science for NASA and ISRO | Indian Space Progress #30
NISAR demonstrates peak peaceful uses of cutting-edge space technologies to solve humanity’s fundamental problems, and then some more.
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• Jatan Mehta
Moon Monday #237: China completes large lander test in latest milestone to put humans on the Moon
Reviewing all recent advances from China as it prepares to perform crewed Moon missions. Plus more mission updates.
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• Jatan Mehta
Everything you need to know about NASA CLPS Moon landing missions
A look at the armada of robotic landers NASA is riding to the Moon this decade.
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• Jatan Mehta
Moon Monday #236: A third orbiter-lander-rover trio to fire-and-fly
I’m thrilled to welcome Astrolab as a continuing yearly sponsor of my Moon Monday blog+newsletter!
California-based Venturi Astrolab Inc. (Astrolab) is developing the large multi-purpose rovers of FLEX and FLIP for advanced exploration of our Moon this decade and next. Through FLEX, Astrolab leads one
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• Jatan Mehta
A story about open knowledge sharing in space
It was eight years ago that I wrote a guide on how to correctly and reliably install NASA’s popular HEASoft software on Linux, a software which is extensively used in high energy Astrophysics research.
I wrote it because the official guides on NASA HEASoft’s website
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• Jatan Mehta
Moon Monday #235: Artemis and other mission updates
Read to the end for a jolly Jovian update!