Copernical Team
The Lunar Lantern could be a beacon for humanity on the moon
In October of 2024, NASA's Artemis Program will return astronauts to the surface of the moon for the first time since the Apollo Era. In the years and decades that follow, multiple space agencies and commercial partners plan to build the infrastructure that will allow for a long-term human presence on the moon. An important part of these efforts involves building habitats that can ensure the astronauts' health, safety, and comfort in the extreme lunar environment.
This challenge has inspired architects and designers from all over the world to create innovative and novel ideas for lunar living. One of these is the Lunar Lantern, a base concept developed by ICON (an advanced construction company based in Austin, Texas) as part of a NASA-supported project to build a sustainable outpost on the moon. This proposal is currently being showcased as part of the 17th International Architecture Exhibition at the La Biennale di Venezia museum in Venice, Italy.
The Lunar Lantern emerged from Project Olympus, a research and development program made possible thanks to a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract and funding from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC).
Week in images: 14 - 18 June 2021
Week in images: 14 - 18 June 2021
Discover our week through the lens
LLNL/Tyvak space telescope goes into orbit
Earth from Space: Tana River
The Tana River, Kenya’s longest river, is featured in this false-colour image captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission.
ESA-led space propulsion test facility passed to UK owner
The UK’s new National Space Propulsion Facility has been declared open. ESA oversaw the design, assembly and commissioning of the facility – equipped to test-fire the most powerful classes of rocket engines used aboard spacecraft – which will now be managed by the UK Government’s Science and Technology Facilities Council.
Crew starts making China's new space station their home
Successful program ignited by modest spark of an idea
It was in August 1958 that Chinese scientists started to float the idea of sending Chinese astronauts to space.
At that time, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the country's top scientific body, had formed a panel of distinguished scientists to discuss the research and development of satellites. Whether and how China should start a manned space program was also included on the agenda, three Operations Underway to Restore Payload Computer on NASA's Hubble Space Telescope
computer halted on Sunday, June 13, shortly after 4 p.m. EDT. After analyzing the data, the Hubble operations team is investigating whether a degrading memory module led to the computer halt. The team is preparing to switch to one of several backup modules on Wednesday, June 16. The computer will then be allowed to run for approximately one day to verify that the problem has been solved. The tea Young star system reveals gravitational instabilities of planet formation process
A chaotic, young star system, located 400 light-years from Earth, has offered astronomers new insights into the planet formation process.
Observations of the stellar system Elias 2-27 - made using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, or ALMA - confirmed the presence of significant gravitational instabilities, a phenomenon scientists have long suspected played an important Russian scientists demonstrate perfect light absorption by single nanoparticle
Scientists from ITMO University and Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT) have proven that small objects, just like big ones, are capable of perfect light absorption. The results of this research will be helpful in the development of new technologies for wireless transfer of energy and data. The paper was published in Laser and Photonics Reviews.
Light can interact with matter 
