January 2019
Visiting an asteroid to find out how life began
... descent of the Hayabusa2 spacecraft itself to collect a sample of the asteroid to bring home. Provisional plans pencilled...Earth. Once communication has been re-established, plans for sample collection can resume. In addition to gathering material, ...
January 2020
Old rocks, new tricks - a lunar link to modern volcanology
... will happen next remains notoriously tricky for the vast majority of volcanic systems. A 3D view of an Apollo mission sample that has been measured using X-ray microcomputed tomography. The different shades of grey, highlight different densities...
October 2024
Lunar construction with regolith and robots
... to explore outer space, as demonstrated by China’s lunar sample return mission in May 2024. This article links NewSpace and...(Na2O) and potassium oxide (K2O) content compared to lunar samples. Figure 3. Thin section images of TUBS-M basalt (left)...
October 2021
Russia and China – a new space axis
... programme (see table). China achieved its first lunar landing in 2013, a far side landing in 2019 and a sample return in 2020 (Chang’e 3-5), but had three more lunar spacecraft in preparation (Chang’e 6-8). Russia, by contrast, wanted to resume...
May 2018
Challenging the boundaries of materials science
... space environment. One outstanding experiment involved placing a bus-sized cylindrical facility into orbit, supporting 10,000 samples ranging from spacecraft polymers, alloys, paints and electronic materials to advanced solar cells. The payload was...
27 June 2018
Hayabusa2 reaches Ryugu after a 42 month journey
...surface and expose fresh material within the excavated crater. Samples will then be collected and returned to Earth for ...observation of asteroid Ryugu and surveying the asteroid for sample collection." Aside from helping to establish its monetary...
