Lunar regolith (aka. moondust) is a major hazard for missions heading to the moon. It's everywhere on the surface—5 to 10 meters (~16.5 to 33 feet) in depth in some places—not to mention jagged and sticky. During the Apollo missions, astronauts learned how this dust adhered to everything, including their spacesuits. Worse, it would get tracked back into their lunar modules (LMs), where it stuck to surfaces and played havoc with electronics and mechanical equipment, and even led to long-term respiratory problems.

This is a major concern for the Artemis Program, which aims to establish a "sustained program of lunar exploration and development." One of the key elements of this program is the Lunar Gateway, a lunar habitat that will orbit the moon for a planned 15 years and facilitate long-term missions to the surface.

A newly designed foldable phased-array transmitter can help make satellites lightweight, smaller, and cost-efficient to launch, report scientists at Tokyo Tech. The transmitter is made of stacked layers of liquid crystal polymer and incorporates flexible creases, which provide flexibility and deployability. The new design could make research and implementation of space technologies more accessible to private companies and startups.

There has been a recent shift in the space industry towards what is now called the "new-space era." The term refers to how space is no longer dominated exclusively by government agencies such as NASA but has instead become a playground for many private companies and startups interested in exploring and deploying space technologies.