Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese National Space Administration recently published a study in the journal Space: Science & Technology outlining how the upcoming Chang'e-7 mission, due to launch in 2026, will use a combination of orbital observations and in-situ analyses to help identify the location, amount, and dispersion of water-ice in the permanently-shadowed regions (PSRs) of the moon, specifically at the lunar south pole.

Once the Chang'e-7 orbiter successfully achieves lunar orbit, it will deploy a lander and mini-flying probe with both designed to perform in-situ analyses of lunar water-ice while the orbiter is expected to conduct remote observations using a variety of instruments.

The paper discusses how the mini-flying probe, which will be equipped with a water molecular analyzer to collect lunar surface frost water molecules, will be capable of flying from the sunlit regions on the lunar south pole to the dark bottom of the impact craters within the PSRs, which conventional lunar rovers were never designed to do, thus providing an enormous benefit to using this new robotic explorer.

Japan's XRISM (X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission, pronounced "crism") observatory, expected to launch Aug. 25 (Aug. 26 Japan local time), will provide an unprecedented view into some of the hottest places in the universe. And it will do so using an instrument that's actually colder than the frostiest cosmic location now known.

The Psyche mission is speeding toward its Oct. 5 launch date, preparing for the last of its launch-preparation milestones.

Robotically unfurling in a clean room near NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the Psyche spacecraft's jumbo solar arrays were tested and permanently installed on the orbiter in preparation for its 2.5 billion-mile (4 billion-kilometer) journey to study a metal-rich asteroid. The launch period opens Oct.