The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has announced on its website that the agency has plans to put a Transformable Lunar Robot on the moon. In their announcement, they note that the goal of the robot deployment is to learn more about the surface of the moon as part of preparation for the deployment of a future crewed rover.

JAXA has made clear its aim to be part of establishing a permanent crewed presence on the moon, and as part of that, the agency has developed a lunar lander and is working on a rover. The lander, officially called the ispace lunar lander, has been designed to be a generic host for multiple entities. Customers planning to use the lander include the Canadian Space Agency and The Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Center. JAXA is developing a rover as well, which it plans to send to the moon in 2029. The lander will be launched aboard SpaceX rockets.

The series For All Mankind (2019) is a fictional alternate history that imagines a world where the Soviet Union was the first power to send an astronaut to the moon. From that starting point, the two rival superpowers compete to establish their own lunar station.

Just a few short years later, the scenario is no fantasy. Fifty years after the Apollo 11 mission in 2019 the United States announced its intention to return to the Moon in 2024. In light of the concept of "New Space", this new ambition highlights a growing geostrategic competition, particularly given China's precipitous rise.

Artemis, one step ahead

To succeed on this mission, NASA has promoted the Artemis program, a consortium led by the United States that brings together eight other countries—Australia, Canada, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Ukraine, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom. NASA and Brazil signed a statement of intent in December 2020 to join the program. Each participant will contribute to the completion of the mission with technical and scientific support.

NASA is also counting on the private sector, including the SpaceX Starship (SN1), to fulfill the human landing system (HLS) program.

How is matter distributed within our universe? And what is the mysterious substance known as dark energy made of? HIRAX, a new large telescope array comprising hundreds of small radio telescopes, should provide some answers. Among those instrumental in developing the system are physicists from ETH Zurich.

"It's an exciting project," says Alexandre Refregier, Professor of Physics at ETH Zurich, as he considers the futuristic-looking visualization from South Africa. The image shows a scene in the middle of the Karoo semidesert, far away from larger settlements, with rows upon rows of more than 1,000 parabolic reflectors all directed towards the same point. At first glance, one might assume this is a solar power station, but it's actually a large radio telescope that over the coming years should provide cosmologists with new insights into the makeup and history of our universe.