The Lunar Week: Artemis II science data goes public, ispace picks ArianeGroup thrusters

This week on the Moon

No lunar launches or landings are scheduled for October 12 to 18: none of the launches listed for the week in Launch Library 2 is bound for the Moon. NASA's next planned lunar launch, Voyager Technologies' first Griffin lander, is on track for no earlier than November, NASA's Moon Base program manager said on September 15. China's Chang'e-7 will not fly this year: on August 23 the China Manned Space Agency said the probe does not meet launch conditions and cannot launch in this year's planned window.

United States

NASA announced on October 7 that more than 800 gigabytes of Artemis II lunar science data, some previously unreleased, are now public in its Planetary Data System. The release includes more than 11,000 full-resolution images and video of the Moon from the crew's handheld cameras and Orion's cameras, 8.5 hours of audio recordings of the crew's observations of the lunar surface, and crew-annotated images. NASA also released three documents, the Artemis II Preliminary Lunar Science Report, the Lunar Science Operations Report and the Lunar Science Data User Guide, which it says are already helping inform its plans for Artemis III and beyond. A companion page, "Artemis II: Sights & Sounds of Science", is NASA's field guide to the preliminary report.

Johnson Space Center's Brian O'Hagan presented "NASA Artemis Plan" at the Texas A&M Global Cyber Research Institute Summit on October 8; the slides are on NASA's Technical Reports Server. They set out cybersecurity domains from ground stations and mission control, through low Earth orbit and the Earth-Moon transit and lunar orbit area that includes the LunaNet relay network, to the lunar surface, which the presentation calls an "area of major concern since we will have a lot of infrastructure and we won't be alone." New Space Economy noted that it is a planning presentation, not a completed security standard.^[1]

China

Nothing new for China in our data this week.

Elsewhere

ispace announced on October 6 that it has selected ArianeGroup pulsing thrusters and reaction control system thruster hardware for its ULTRA lunar landers, with ArianeGroup also contracted for related assembly, integration and testing. The two companies signed a memorandum of understanding the same day at the International Astronautical Congress in Antalya, Türkiye, to explore expanded cooperation on ispace's current and future lunar spacecraft and missions.

European Spaceflight reported on October 8 that The Exploration Company has announced it will test a lunar hopper demonstrator called ONEIROS in the United Arab Emirates in 2027; the company plans a one-tonne demonstrator with a throttleable methane-fuelled engine. SpaceWatch.Global reported on October 9 that Telespazio BeNeLux will lead a consortium with EarthLab Luxembourg and Hungary's Astro42 to deliver the operations centre for ESA's PROSPECT lunar drilling mission, ahead of its 2027 flight. ESA says PROSPECT will reach the lunar surface on Intuitive Machines' Nova-C lander on the IM-4 mission.^[2][3]

AYAP-1, Türkiye's first lunar exploration spacecraft, now appears in the launch listings on a SpaceX Falcon 9, shown for April 2027 with the date marked to be determined. It is planned to operate for at least three months in a 100-kilometre lunar orbit before ending with a controlled crash landing. Turkish Minute reported on October 6 that the spacecraft has completed manufacturing, assembly and integration, is undergoing tests that simulate launch and space conditions, and is targeted for launch in the first half of 2027, according to TÜBİTAK.^[4][5]

Tracker check

The SpaceNexus tracker, with its data reviewed against sources as of October 11, shows the crewed landing ladder at 3.5 of 8 rungs for the United States and 1.75 of 8 rungs for China, with the status line reading "United States leads on demonstrated milestones". The official targets it lists are 2028 (NASA target: early 2028) for Artemis IV, and before 2030 (2030年前) for China.^[6][7]

On the permanent presence ladder the tracker shows the United States at 1 of 8 rungs and China at 1.25 of 8 rungs, with the status line reading "Level on demonstrated milestones". Its projection of the first crewed landing reads "Too close to call": China's projected window runs from June 2, 2029 to October 13, 2032 (central estimate November 19, 2029) and the United States' from November 7, 2029 to July 3, 2031 (central estimate November 6, 2030), and the two windows overlap.^[6][7]