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Firefly Aerospace became the first commercial company to successfully achieve a soft landing on the moon on 2 March with the landing of Blue Ghost Mission 1 near Mons Latreille. It lasted the intended length of one lunar day before losing power on 16 March. It was launched with the Hakuto-R Mission 2 lander Resilience and rover Tenacious, which are planned to land in the Mare Frigoris.
On 6 March, the IM-2 mission's lunar lander Athena landed on Mons Mouton. Although intact, it landed sideways, preventing it from generating enough power to operate as designed. The mission was declared over the following day.
The Phootprint mission is a candidate for the Mars Robotic Exploration Preparation Programme 2 (MREP-2) at ESA. During 2014, ESA funded a pre-phase A feasibility study and industrial system studies of 8-month duration. Currently, it is in phase A, meaning 'mission definition study.'
The mission would last about 3.5 years, including cruise, mapping orbit, 7 days on the surface, and sample return cruise time. The spacecraft would be powered by solar arrays.
In August 2015, the ESA-Roscosmos working group on post-ExoMars cooperation, completed a joint study for a possible future Phobos Sample Return mission, and preliminary discussions were held.
Image of the month
InSight lander testing
The InSight (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) lander was selected from among three options in August 2012. Initially planned to launch in March 2016, an instrument issue delayed the launch to May 2018, the next Earth-Mars launch window. It was successfully launched on 5 May, and landed on Elysium Planitia on 26 November 2018. Taking seismographic and thermographic readings, InSight operated for a total of 4 years and 19 days instead of its planned 2 year mission. The mission was declared over on 21 December, 2022 after contact was lost on 15 December. A re-analysis of some of its data indicates that there may be significant amounts of groundwater in Mars' crust.
Since February 2025, six new low-importance and one new unknown-importance articles have been created. One NA-importance article has been removed, for a total of six new articles. There are also five more C-class articles, three more Start-class articles, two more Stub-class articles, and one more list.
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Newsletter contributors: Ships&Space
