Continuous research is being conducted globally on using the moon as an advanced base for deep space exploration, and Korea is no exception in these efforts. The Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology (KICT) successfully implemented an electrostatic environment that simulates the moon's surface conditions, not in space but on Earth. The researchers also assessed its performance and effectiveness.

Among the most serious threats in executing lunar missions is the moon's surface environment, which is electrostatically charged. Due to its extremely thin atmosphere, the moon is directly exposed to solar ultraviolet rays, X-rays, solar wind, Earth plasma, etc. Thus, clouds of dust on the moon exhibit strong static electricity. The moon's electrostatic environment is positively charged during the day and negatively charged during the night.

Given that the moon has nearly no atmosphere, dust can be easily blown away even by small impacts due to the minimal air resistance.

After the historic return of the U.S. to the surface of the moon after more than 50 years last week, a private company's lunar lander will likely have its mission cut short because of how it landed.

Houston-based Intuitive Machines managed to touch down on the moon with its Nova-C lander Odysseus, but the craft tipped over to one side, likely because it had one of its landing gear catch, company officials said. The lunar lander is not expected to be able to maintain power or communicate with mission managers beyond tomorrow.

"Flight controllers intend to collect data until the lander's solar panels are no longer exposed to light. Based on Earth and moon positioning, we believe flight controllers will continue to communicate with Odysseus until Tuesday morning," reads an update from the company's website.

That's bad news for NASA, which paid the company $118 million as part of its Commercial Lunar Lander Services program, which tasks private companies to build hardware capable of bringing payloads to the moon. NASA has six payloads on board worth about $12 million that were aiming for eight to nine days of life before the sun set on that part of the moon, although Intuitive Machines' pre-launch target was seven days.

Argentina on Monday gave authorization for the deployment of Starlink, the satellite internet service of Elon Musk—a fan of the South American country's self-styled new "anarcho-capitalist" President Javier Milei.