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On February 24, 2026, inside a specialized vacuum chamber at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, a team of engineers and scientists ignited a prototype thruster that had been more than two and a half years in development. The device, a lithium-fed magnetoplasmadynamic thruster, produced a plasma plume that glowed incandescent red as it pushed against the simulated void of space. Over five separate ignitions, the thruster operated at power levels reaching 120 kilowatts, exceeding by more than 25 times the power output of the highest-performance electric thrusters currently operating on any NASA spacecraft. The test marked the first time in the United States that an electric propulsion system had operated at power levels this high, representing a step change in the technology readiness of systems needed to send humans to Mars.

Electric propulsion differs fundamentally from the chemical rockets that have powered virtually every human spaceflight to date. Chemical rockets achieve high thrust by burning fuel and oxidizer in a combustion chamber, expelling the resulting gases at high velocity through a nozzle. The energy comes from the chemical reaction itself. Electric propulsion instead uses external energy sources, typically solar panels or nuclear reactors, to accelerate a propellant to velocities far exceeding those achievable chemically, albeit at much lower thrust levels. The tradeoff enables spacecraft to use propellant far more efficiently. NASA’s Psyche spacecraft, currently operating its solar-electric propulsion system on a journey to the main-belt asteroid of the same name, uses approximately 90 percent less propellant per unit of thrust than an equivalent chemical system would require.

The magnetoplasmadynamic thruster tested at JPL pushes this principle further by relying on electromagnetic acceleration rather than electrostatic forces. A high electrical current passes through the lithium plasma, interacting with the self-generated magnetic field to produce a Lorentz force that accelerates the plasma out of the thruster’s nozzle. The lithium metal, chosen because it vaporizes at manageable temperatures and has a low atomic mass suitable for high exhaust velocities, serves as the propellant. The system requires extraordinarily high power to generate meaningful thrust, which is why the 120-kilowatt demonstration represents a meaningful milestone.

James Polk, a senior research scientist at JPL who has worked on lithium-fed MPD thrusters since the 1990s, observed the first firing through a small viewport in the eight-meter-long water-cooled vacuum chamber. The tungsten electrode at the center of the thruster glowed white-hot, reaching temperatures above 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit. “We not only showed the thruster works, but we also hit the power levels we were targeting,” Polk said in a JPL statement. The test provided data on electrode erosion, thermal management, and plasma stability that will inform the next round of engineering development.

The long-term goal of NASA’s Space Nuclear Propulsion project, which funds the MPD thruster work through the Space Technology Mission Directorate, is to develop thruster systems capable of operating at 500 kilowatts to one megawatt per unit. A crewed Mars mission would require two to four megawatts of electric propulsion power, meaning multiple thrusters operating in concert. The system would need to run for more than 23,000 hours over the course of a Mars mission, exposing components to the extreme temperatures and particle bombardment that such operation entails. Proving that hardware can survive these conditions is the central challenge facing the program.

The 120-kilowatt test at JPL falls well short of megawatt-class operation, but it establishes the foundational physics and engineering that later systems will build upon. The CoMeT vacuum facility, formally the Condensable Metal Propellant vacuum facility, is a unique national asset capable of testing metal-vapor thrusters at power levels up to megawatt-class. The facility’s ability to safely contain lithium metal vapor in a vacuum environment is essential to the program, as lithium is highly reactive and requires specialized handling procedures that differ from those of conventional electric propulsion propellants like xenon.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman, who has overseen a significant expansion of the agency’s technology development portfolio since taking office, characterized the test as evidence that the agency is maintaining its commitment to Mars even as current missions capture public attention. “This marks the first time in the United States that an electric propulsion system has operated at power levels this high,” Isaacman said. “We will continue to make strategic investments that will propel that next giant leap.” The remarks reflect an acknowledgment that crewed Mars missions remain decades away in capability terms, even as the political rhetoric around them intensifies.

The development of high-power electric propulsion for Mars has been a stated objective of NASA’s human exploration program for years, but progress has been uneven. The Psyche mission, launched in October 2023, validated solar-electric propulsion at the power levels needed for deep space missions but used xenon as its propellant rather than lithium. Xenon is heavier than lithium and cannot be stored as densely, making it less suitable for the high-throughput, long-duration missions that Mars architectures envision. The lithium-fed approach addresses the propellant storage and performance issues but introduces new engineering challenges related to material compatibility and thermal management that the current test program is working to resolve.

The broader architecture for Mars exploration that NASA has discussed involves nuclear electric propulsion, in which a fission reactor provides the electrical power needed to run multiple high-power thrusters simultaneously. This approach differs from chemical propulsion systems in that the reactor provides continuous power generation over months or years of operation, while the thrusters convert that power into incremental velocity changes that add up over time. The resulting trajectories to Mars are slower than those achievable with chemical propulsion but consume far less mass in propellant, potentially enabling spacecraft with large crew habitats and cargo to reach Mars without the mass penalties that chemical systems would impose.

Magnetoplasmadynamic thrusters operate on principles derived from plasma physics and electromagnetic theory. When an electrical current flows through a plasma, the moving charges generate a magnetic field that surrounds the current path. That magnetic field interacts with the current itself, producing a Lorentz force that acts on the charged particles in the plasma. In a self-field MPD thruster, the current flows from an electrode at the thruster’s center through the plasma to an outer electrode, and the magnetic field generated by that current drives the plasma toward the exhaust end of the device.

The thrust produced by the thruster scales with the square of the current and inversely with the distance between electrodes. This relationship means that achieving high thrust requires either very high currents or very small electrode gaps, both of which present engineering challenges. As current increases, the electrodes experience greater resistive heating and erosion from ion bombardment. The electrode gap cannot be made arbitrarily small without restricting the flow of propellant through the thruster.

The lithium propellant enters the system as a solid or liquid metal that is vaporized before entering the discharge chamber. The vapor is introduced near the electrodes, where it is ionized by the high current flowing through the plasma. The resulting lithium ions and electrons constitute the conducting medium through which the electromagnetic acceleration occurs. The choice of lithium over other propellants like xenon or argon reflects its low ionization potential, which reduces the energy required to create the plasma, and its low atomic mass, which means that each ion carries less momentum for a given kinetic energy but the exhaust velocity can be made higher.

The efficiency of an MPD thruster depends on how effectively the electrical power is converted into kinetic energy of the exhaust plume rather than being lost to heat, radiation, or electrode erosion. At the power levels demonstrated in February 2026, the thruster achieved efficiencies that justify continued development but fall short of the performance projections for megawatt-class systems. The difference arises because electrode processes, plasma instabilities, and boundary layer effects that are manageable at lower power become more significant at higher power densities.

On May 4, 2026, a Seattle-based startup called Interlune announced it had won a $6.9 million Small Business Innovation Research Phase 3 contract from NASA to develop a payload designed to extract helium-3 from lunar regolith. The award, from NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate’s Game Changing Development program, funds a mission called Prospect Moon that represents the first attempt to extract solar wind volatiles directly from lunar soil in situ. If the technology works as designed, it could establish the foundation for a commercial helium-3 industry that its proponents argue will eventually support both quantum computing applications on Earth and a sustainable economic presence on the Moon.

Helium-3 is a light isotope of helium with two protons and one neutron, as opposed to the far more common helium-4, which has two of each. The isotope is scarce on Earth, where natural concentrations in the atmosphere measure in the parts per billion, but it accumulates on the lunar surface over billions of years as the solar wind embeds helium-3 ions directly into regolith grains. The Moon lacks both a substantial atmosphere and a strong magnetic field, so its surface receives the full intensity of the solar wind, making the isotope roughly 1,000 times more abundant in lunar soil than in Earth’s crust. Interlune estimates that concentrations in certain lunar regions reach 20 to 30 parts per billion, a trace amount that requires industrial-scale processing to extract economically.

The Prospect Moon payload consists of a robotic arm that scoops regolith into an instrument chamber where samples are heated to release volatile gases, including helium-3, hydrogen, and other elements implanted by the solar wind. The system also performs mechanical processing, including size sorting, agitation, and crushing, to evaluate the efficiency of different extraction approaches. The data collected during the mission will calibrate the processes Interlune intends to use at scale on the Moon, building toward a full commercial operation that the company projects could begin within the early 2030s.

The payload is designed to fly on a lunar lander mission launching in 2028, with integration targeted for the fall of 2027. Interlune is evaluating several lander options and has stated a preference for equatorial landing sites, which differ from the south polar region where NASA’s Artemis program and the proposed lunar base are concentrated. This distinction matters because helium-3 distribution on the Moon is not uniform. Equatorial regolith, subject to higher temperatures and longer exposure to the solar wind over lunar geological history, may contain different concentrations than regolith in permanently shadowed polar regions where water ice also accumulates.

Interlune is not entirely new to lunar hardware. The company previously announced an agreement to fly a camera called Crescent Moon on Astrolab’s FLIP rover, which is scheduled to launch later in 2026 aboard Astrobotic’s Griffin-1 lander. That camera is designed to identify concentrations of ilmenite, an iron-titanium oxide mineral that Interlune considers a geological proxy for helium-3. The camera was delivered to Astrolab for integration in early 2026, making it the company’s first piece of hardware on the lunar surface before Prospect Moon flies.

The commercial rationale for helium-3 rests on applications in quantum computing and quantum sensors, where the isotope serves as a cooling medium and a resource for certain types of quantum bit architectures. Interlune has signed contracts with the Department of Energy and with quantum computing companies Maybell Quantum and Bluefors, collectively worth approximately $500 million, with letters of intent for additional volume. Some of these contracts have delivery timelines as early as 2028, which means Interlune is simultaneously developing Earth-based helium-3 extraction technology from industrial-grade helium supplies to bridge the gap before lunar production becomes viable. The trace amounts of helium-3 present in commercial helium make this terrestrial approach technically feasible, though yield per unit processed is far lower than what lunar mining would eventually produce.

Rob Meyerson, Interlune’s chief executive, has acknowledged that the transition from a demonstration payload to a full extraction operation will take years, and that commercial lunar helium-3 production is not expected before the early 2030s even if the 2028 mission succeeds. The relationship between Interlune’s business and NASA’s lunar base plans remains an open question. Meyerson has stated that the company does not expect its operations to be located within the Artemis base’s south polar footprint, which is not a preferred region for helium-3 extraction. However, he argues that the infrastructure built for the base, including landing facilities and surface power systems, would benefit commercial lunar operations generally, and that Interlune’s technologies would in turn provide economic justification for that infrastructure.

The solar wind is a continuous stream of charged particles, predominantly protons and electrons, emanating from the Sun’s upper atmosphere at velocities between 400 and 800 kilometers per second. When these particles reach the Moon, they penetrate the regolith surface and come to rest at depths determined by their energy, typically within the top few hundred micrometers of grain surfaces. Over geological time, this implanted inventory builds up as a function of the solar wind flux, which varies with the Sun’s activity cycle, and the regolith’s exposure history, which is governed by the overturn and transport of surface material by micrometeorite impacts.

Helium-3 accumulation on the Moon follows a predictable pattern driven by exposure age. Regolith grains that have resided at or near the surface for hundreds of millions of years accumulate more helium-3 than material that has been recently buried or overturned. The concentration per unit mass depends on the mineral composition of the regolith, because different minerals have different capacities to retain implanted helium without losing it to diffusion. Ilmenite, an iron-titanium oxide found in lunar mare basalt, has received particular attention for its retention properties, which is why Interlune uses it as a geological indicator for high helium-3 zones.

Extracting helium-3 from regolith involves heating the material to temperatures between 600 and 800 degrees Celsius, at which point the implanted volatiles diffuse out of the mineral matrix and can be captured and separated. The process is thermally intensive and must be conducted in a controlled atmosphere to prevent oxidation or loss of the collected gases. A full-scale lunar operation would require substantial power, typically provided by solar arrays during the lunar day, with energy storage to maintain operations through the two-week lunar night, making power availability a primary constraint on mining rates.

The isotopic ratio of helium-3 to helium-4 in lunar regolith provides information about the long-term average composition of the solar wind. Measurements from Apollo samples indicate a helium-3 to helium-4 ratio of approximately 1 to 2,000 in the solar wind, compared to approximately 1 to 1,000,000 in Earth’s atmospheric helium, reflecting the preferential loss of the lighter isotope from Earth’s gravity well over geological time. This difference is what makes lunar helium-3 economically interesting relative to terrestrial sources, where the isotope is present but at concentrations millions of times lower.

The confirmed count of known exoplanets has now surpassed 6,000, marking a major milestone in one of the fastest-growing fields in modern astronomy. In just a few decades, the study of planets beyond the Solar System has evolved from speculation into a mature observational science supported by space telescopes, precision instrumentation, and increasingly sophisticated data analysis techniques. The milestone is significant not simply because of the number itself, but because of what those discoveries represent: a shift in humanity’s understanding of planetary systems and the realization that planets are a common feature of the galaxy rather than a rarity.

When the Hubble Space Telescope launched in 1990, no exoplanets had yet been confirmed around Sun-like stars. At that time, the detection of planets around other stars remained primarily theoretical because the observational challenges were severe. Stars outshine their planets by enormous factors, and the gravitational influence of a planet on its host star is extremely small at interstellar distances. Detecting these systems required instruments capable of measuring tiny changes in light and motion with unprecedented precision.

The first confirmed exoplanet discoveries in the 1990s immediately challenged existing assumptions about planetary formation. Astronomers identified “hot Jupiters,” large gas giants orbiting extremely close to their stars. These systems contradicted prevailing models based largely on the structure of our own Solar System, where giant planets orbit far from the Sun. Their existence forced theorists to reconsider the role of planetary migration and dynamical interactions during system formation.

Much of the progress since then has been driven by advances in detection methods. The transit method became one of the most productive techniques. When a planet passes in front of its host star relative to the observer, it blocks a small fraction of the starlight, producing a measurable dip in brightness. Detecting these signals requires highly stable photometric measurements because the brightness changes are often less than one percent and, for Earth-sized planets, much smaller.

Space-based observatories transformed this process. Missions such as Kepler Space Telescope and TESS continuously monitored large numbers of stars with precision impossible to achieve consistently from Earth due to atmospheric interference. These missions generated enormous datasets that revealed thousands of candidate planetary systems.

Hubble contributed differently but critically to the field. While not originally designed as an exoplanet observatory, its stable optical platform and ultraviolet capabilities enabled detailed atmospheric studies of transiting planets. During a transit, a small portion of starlight passes through the planet’s atmosphere before reaching the telescope. Different atmospheric gases absorb specific wavelengths, imprinting spectral signatures onto the light. By analyzing these spectra, astronomers can identify atmospheric constituents such as hydrogen, sodium, water vapor, and carbon-bearing molecules.

This technique, known as transmission spectroscopy, opened an entirely new branch of exoplanet science. Hubble observations revealed planets with extended atmospheres escaping into space under intense stellar radiation. In some cases, the escape rates are so high that planets are gradually losing substantial fractions of their atmospheres over astronomical timescales. Observations also identified planets with extremely low densities, sometimes referred to as “puffy” gas giants, where atmospheric inflation likely results from intense heating by their host stars.

Other discoveries highlighted the diversity of planetary systems. Some exoplanets orbit so close to their stars that tidal forces distort them into elongated shapes. Others have atmospheres containing clouds of vaporized metals or temperatures high enough to dissociate molecular compounds. Measurements of reflectivity revealed planets that absorb nearly all incoming light, making them darker than charcoal or fresh asphalt in visible wavelengths.

The engineering behind these measurements is highly demanding. Space telescopes must maintain exceptional pointing stability and detector calibration over long periods. Instruments capable of spectroscopic analysis require precise wavelength calibration and thermal control, as even small temperature variations can alter detector response. Noise sources—including cosmic rays, detector artifacts, and stellar variability—must be modeled and removed to isolate planetary signals.

The current generation of observatories has significantly expanded observational capability. James Webb Space Telescope extends atmospheric characterization into the infrared, where many important molecular absorption features occur. Webb’s sensitivity allows the detection of atmospheric constituents at lower concentrations and on smaller planets than previously possible. Infrared observations are particularly important for studying water vapor, methane, carbon dioxide, and thermal structure.

TESS complements this work by identifying nearby transiting planets suitable for follow-up observations. Because these targets orbit relatively bright stars, they are more accessible for detailed spectroscopic analysis. This coordination between survey missions and characterization observatories has become a defining feature of modern exoplanet science.

The upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will add another dimension through wide-field surveys and gravitational microlensing observations. Microlensing detects planets through the gravitational bending of light when a foreground star passes in front of a more distant background star. If the foreground star hosts planets, they produce characteristic perturbations in the light curve. This method is sensitive to planets at larger orbital distances and even free-floating planets not bound to stars, expanding the known population beyond what transit methods can detect efficiently.

The scientific significance of surpassing 6,000 confirmed exoplanets lies not only in cataloging diversity, but in enabling statistical analysis. With sufficiently large samples, astronomers can study planetary populations systematically. Relationships between stellar type, planetary composition, orbital architecture, and atmospheric properties can be quantified. These datasets improve models of planet formation, migration, and long-term evolution.

The search for potentially habitable worlds remains one of the field’s major objectives. Habitability depends on multiple variables, including stellar radiation, atmospheric composition, surface pressure, and geological activity. Current instruments are beginning to probe some of these factors indirectly through atmospheric spectroscopy and climate modeling. Future observatories may eventually detect biosignature gases or other indicators of biological processes, though such measurements remain technically challenging.

The milestone also reflects advances in data processing and computational methods. Planet detection pipelines analyze large volumes of photometric and spectroscopic data using automated algorithms capable of identifying periodic signals and filtering out false positives. Machine learning methods increasingly assist with classification and anomaly detection, particularly as datasets continue to grow.

In practical terms, the field has transitioned from isolated discoveries to large-scale comparative planetary science. The existence of thousands of known exoplanets demonstrates that planetary systems are a normal outcome of star formation. The diversity observed among those systems indicates that the Solar System represents only one configuration among many possible outcomes.

As the count continues to grow, the emphasis is shifting from detection to characterization. The next phase of exoplanet research will focus increasingly on atmospheric chemistry, climate processes, planetary interiors, and the conditions necessary for long-term habitability. The combined capabilities of Hubble, Webb, TESS, Roman, and future observatories will continue to refine this picture, moving the field from discovery into detailed physical understanding.

Video credit: NASA Goddard

At a facility in Logan, Utah, engineers and scientists are assembling a spacecraft designed for a specific and increasingly important purpose: finding potentially hazardous objects before they find Earth. NEO Surveyor, NASA’s first space telescope built specifically for planetary defense, has now entered integration and testing at Utah State University’s Space Dynamics Laboratory. With a launch targeted no earlier than September 2027, the mission is transitioning from design and subsystem development into full spacecraft assembly and operational validation.

The mission addresses a well-defined problem in planetary science and risk management. Near-Earth objects, or NEOs, are asteroids and comets whose orbits bring them close to Earth’s orbital path around the Sun. Most are harmless, but some are large enough that an impact could produce severe regional or global consequences. The challenge is not only detecting these objects, but accurately determining their size, composition, trajectory, and long-term orbital evolution.

Traditional asteroid surveys rely heavily on visible-light telescopes. These systems detect sunlight reflected from an object’s surface. While effective, visible-light observations introduce ambiguity because brightness depends on both size and reflectivity. A small, highly reflective asteroid can appear similar to a much larger, darker one. This uncertainty complicates risk assessment.

NEO Surveyor approaches the problem differently by observing in the infrared. Instead of measuring reflected sunlight, the telescope measures thermal radiation emitted by objects themselves. Every object with a temperature above absolute zero emits infrared energy, and the intensity of that radiation depends strongly on the object’s size and temperature. By observing thermal emission directly, astronomers can estimate asteroid size with much greater accuracy than visible-light observations alone allow.

The spacecraft uses two heat-sensitive infrared imaging channels optimized for detecting and characterizing NEOs. These detectors operate at wavelengths where asteroids emit strongly after being heated by sunlight. The engineering challenge is substantial because infrared instruments are extremely sensitive to heat generated by the spacecraft itself. Any excess thermal emission from onboard systems can overwhelm faint asteroid signals.

To address this, NEO Surveyor incorporates a carefully designed thermal architecture. Passive cooling systems, including sunshields and radiative surfaces, help maintain the telescope and detectors at low temperatures. The observatory’s orientation relative to the Sun is tightly controlled to minimize thermal loading. This thermal stability is critical for detector sensitivity and calibration consistency over the mission lifetime.

The mission’s observing location also plays an important role. NEO Surveyor is expected to operate near the Sun-Earth L1 Lagrange point, a gravitationally stable region approximately 1.5 million kilometers from Earth toward the Sun. From this location, the telescope can maintain a continuous view of space near Earth’s orbit while operating in a thermally stable environment. The vantage point also allows the observatory to detect objects approaching from directions difficult to observe from Earth-based telescopes, particularly those coming from the daytime side of the sky.

The science objectives are directly tied to NASA’s planetary defense strategy. During its five-year baseline mission, NEO Surveyor aims to detect at least two-thirds of near-Earth objects larger than approximately 460 feet, or 140 meters, in diameter. Objects of this scale are considered capable of causing major regional damage in the event of an impact. Identifying and tracking them significantly improves Earth’s preparedness and response options.

Detection alone, however, is only part of the mission. The infrared data collected by NEO Surveyor will also help characterize asteroid composition and physical properties. By measuring thermal behavior over time, scientists can infer surface characteristics such as roughness and thermal inertia. Combined with rotational observations, these measurements provide insight into shape, spin state, and internal structure.

This information is scientifically valuable beyond planetary defense. Asteroids are remnants of the early Solar System, preserving material from the era of planetary formation. Their compositions reveal details about the distribution of minerals, volatiles, and organic compounds billions of years ago. Understanding asteroid populations also improves models of Solar System dynamics and long-term orbital evolution.

The engineering effort behind NEO Surveyor extends beyond the spacecraft itself. The mission will generate extremely large volumes of observational data, requiring advanced processing systems capable of identifying moving objects against dense stellar backgrounds. Software pipelines are being developed to automatically detect candidate NEOs, correlate repeated observations, and calculate preliminary orbits.

This data-processing challenge is significant because asteroids move relative to background stars, often appearing as faint, shifting points of light. Algorithms must distinguish genuine moving objects from detector noise, cosmic ray events, and background artifacts. Once detections are confirmed, orbital determination software calculates trajectories and predicts future positions. These calculations must account for gravitational interactions with planets and subtle non-gravitational effects such as the Yarkovsky effect, where uneven thermal emission gradually alters an asteroid’s orbit over time.

Integration and testing at the Space Dynamics Laboratory represent the stage where these systems begin operating together as a unified observatory. Spacecraft structure, avionics, thermal systems, detectors, and software must all function as an integrated system under simulated launch and space conditions. Environmental testing will expose the observatory to vibration, acoustic loads, vacuum conditions, and thermal extremes to verify readiness for launch and long-duration operation.

Reliability is especially important for a planetary defense mission. NEO Surveyor is intended to operate continuously for years with minimal intervention. Detector calibration, pointing accuracy, onboard data handling, and communication systems must remain stable over extended periods. Even small degradations in sensitivity or pointing precision can affect detection performance for faint objects.

The broader significance of NEO Surveyor lies in its role as infrastructure for planetary defense. Previous asteroid discoveries have largely come from general-purpose astronomical surveys. NEO Surveyor is different because it is purpose-built. Every aspect of the observatory—from wavelength selection to orbital placement—is optimized for detecting hazardous objects efficiently and systematically.

This represents a maturation of planetary defense from a research activity into an operational capability. Instead of relying on incidental discoveries, the mission establishes a dedicated system for identifying and tracking threats. The earlier a hazardous object is detected, the more response options become available, ranging from evacuation planning to potential deflection missions.

As assembly and testing continue toward launch readiness, NEO Surveyor is moving closer to becoming a permanent observational asset for Earth. Its task is straightforward in concept but demanding in execution: continuously scan the Solar System for objects that could one day intersect our planet’s path.

In practical terms, the mission is about measurement and detection. In strategic terms, it is about reducing uncertainty. By expanding humanity’s ability to identify and characterize near-Earth objects, NEO Surveyor strengthens the scientific and technical foundation of planetary defense while also deepening our understanding of the Solar System’s small-body population.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency announced in late April 2026 that it had selected three companies for the first phase of a lunar mission study program focused on detecting and mapping water ice deposits in the lunar south polar region from very low orbits. The Lunar Assay via Small Satellite Orbiter program, known as LASSO, would demonstrate sustained operations at altitudes where atmospheric drag, even in the extremely thin exosphere above the Moon, affects orbital stability, while gathering data that supports both NASA’s Artemis program and commercial plans to extract lunar resources.

The three companies awarded Phase 1A and Phase 1B studies are Benchmark Space Systems, Quantum Space, and Revolution Space. Benchmark Space Systems, which has built its reputation as a propulsion supplier but is moving up the value chain to integrated spacecraft development, proposed a mission architecture called Sapphire that combines chemical and electric propulsion with a terrain navigation and hazard avoidance system designed to handle the challenging topography of the lunar poles. Quantum Space, which acquired the propulsion assets of Phase Four in 2025 and has been developing a highly maneuverable spacecraft called Ranger, received an award whose details it has not publicly disclosed. Revolution Space is the third awardee and has not provided public information about its LASSO concept.

The scientific objective of LASSO is to find water ice concentrations above five percent by mass in the permanently shadowed regions near the lunar south pole. This threshold matters because it represents the concentration at which in-situ resource utilization becomes economically viable. Water ice can be electrolyzed to produce liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, which can serve as rocket propellant. A lander that can produce its own fuel on the Moon changes the calculus for sustained human presence by reducing the amount of propellant that must be launched from Earth. Finding deposits with sufficient concentration and accessibility to support this requires orbital surveys that can detect and quantify ice at depths of up to several meters.

Operating a spacecraft in very low lunar orbit presents technical challenges that distinguish LASSO from typical lunar missions. The Moon lacks a substantial atmosphere, but it does have an exosphere, a thin layer of atoms and molecules that extends from the surface outward. At altitudes below 50 kilometers, this exosphere creates measurable drag that degrades a spacecraft’s orbit over time. Maintaining a stable very low orbit requires either frequent propulsion maneuvers to counteract drag or a spacecraft design with a large propellant margin specifically allocated to orbit maintenance. LASSO is as much a technology demonstration for sustained low-orbit operations as it is a scientific mission.

The Phase 1A concept design study runs for six months, after which successful performers advance to Phase 1B, an 18-month effort that brings designs through critical design review. Phase 2, if funded, would build and launch the spacecraft. DARPA has not specified when a launch might occur or what launch vehicle would be used, but the agency has indicated that it intends to demonstrate the capability before NASA’s planned Artemis missions establish a sustained human presence near the south pole.

For Benchmark Space Systems, the LASSO award represents a strategic step in the company’s evolution. We will rigorously evaluate how hybrid propulsion, autonomy and spacecraft design can converge to meet DARPA’s expectations, said Ryan McDevitt, the company’s chief technology officer, in a statement accompanying the award announcement. The combination of chemical propulsion for high-thrust maneuvers and electric propulsion for efficient station-keeping defines the Sapphire architecture’s approach to the low-orbit problem, using chemical thrust to overcome drag events quickly and electric propulsion to maintain the orbit between those events with lower propellant consumption.

Quantum Space’s involvement reflects a broader pattern in the emerging cislunar economy, where companies with maneuverable spacecraft capabilities find natural applications in programs that require precision orbital operations. This award reflects the growing importance of the cislunar domain to U.S. national security, said Kerry Wisnosky, the company’s president and chief executive, in a separate statement. The reference to national security connects to DARPA’s role as a defense research agency and to the recognition that lunar surface operations will have implications for U.S. positioning in space.

The water ice mapping objective of LASSO builds on data from earlier missions. NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has mapped the lunar surface using its LOLA instrument, which measures surface roughness and slope, and its LRO Diviner instrument has mapped thermal signatures in permanently shadowed regions that are consistent with ice deposits. NASA’s VIPER rover, scheduled to land on the Moon in 2027 aboard a Blue Origin Blue Moon Mark 1 lander, will conduct in-situ measurements of ice concentration at specific locations. LASSO bridges these by providing orbital data at resolutions and coverage depths that neither LRO nor VIPER can achieve alone.

A spacecraft orbiting the Moon at an altitude of 15 to 20 kilometers experiences an orbital environment fundamentally different from low Earth orbit, even though the physical principles are similar. In low Earth orbit, atmospheric drag is the dominant perturbation force. At the Moon’s altitude, the exospheric density is billions of times lower, but the absence of significant gravitational anomalies from a dense core means that even small perturbations accumulate over time. A spacecraft at 20 kilometers will experience measurable drag from particles that individually have very low mass but collectively represent a continuous deceleration.

The orbital velocity required to maintain a circular orbit at 20 kilometers altitude around the Moon is approximately 1.63 kilometers per second. At that speed, even a small amount of drag per orbit, on the order of a few millimeters per second of velocity change, requires correction. Left unchecked, the orbit decays, and the spacecraft eventually impacts the surface. For a spacecraft designed to operate in this regime for an extended period, propellant fraction becomes a critical design parameter. The mass allocated to propulsion and propellant reduces the mass available for instruments, requiring optimization across the entire mission architecture.

The detection of water ice below the lunar surface uses neutron spectrometry and radar, techniques that have heritage from missions to Mars and Mercury. A neutron spectrometer measures the energy spectrum of neutrons generated by cosmic ray impacts on the lunar regolith. Hydrogen atoms, present in water ice and hydroxyl groups, moderate neutron energies in characteristic patterns. By measuring the ratio of thermal to epithermal neutrons, the instrument can estimate hydrogen concentration at depths of approximately one meter. The LASSO orbiter would use such an instrument to map ice distribution across the south polar region, identifying targets for future in-situ resource utilization.

Radar sounding, which uses radio waves to penetrate the surface and detect subsurface interfaces, complements neutron spectrometry by revealing the depth structure of ice deposits. The distinction between surface frost, which can be stable in permanently shadowed regions, and deeper deposits, which may have different origins and characteristics, requires both measurement types. A radar instrument operating at frequencies between 10 and 100 megahertz can penetrate tens of meters into dry regolith but less far into ice-rich material, where the dielectric properties differ. The combination of neutron and radar data produces a three-dimensional map of ice distribution that directly informs where future missions might extract water.

The permanently shadowed regions near the lunar poles present thermal environments that preserve ice over geological timescales. Temperatures below minus 170 degrees Celsius prevent sublimation, the process by which ice transitions directly to vapor. The ice that exists in these regions was delivered over billions of years by comets and asteroids and has accumulated without significant loss. The concentration at the surface may differ from concentration at depth, and the vertical distribution determines how much resource is accessible given the excavation capabilities of robotic systems. LASSO’s orbital survey addresses these questions at scales that ground-based missions cannot match.

Since its launch in 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope has produced a data archive that now exceeds 1.7 million observations. That volume is a direct consequence of engineering choices made decades ago: a stable optical platform above Earth’s atmosphere, a serviceable architecture that allowed instrument upgrades, and detectors capable of recording faint signals across ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared wavelengths. The result is a continuous stream of calibrated images and spectra that can be reanalyzed as methods improve. What has changed in recent years is how that archive is processed. A portion of the analysis has moved outside traditional research groups and into large, coordinated efforts involving volunteers who classify features in Hubble images.

The scientific motivation for involving human participants is specific. Many research tasks in astronomy require pattern recognition under conditions where automated methods remain imperfect. Examples include identifying morphological features in galaxies, tracing weak gravitational lensing distortions, separating overlapping sources in crowded fields, and flagging artifacts such as cosmic ray hits or diffraction spikes. Machine learning systems perform well when trained on representative datasets, but they can fail on rare or ambiguous cases and can inherit biases from their training labels. Human classifiers, when aggregated in large numbers, provide robust consensus labels that can be used both for direct analysis and as training data for algorithms.

The engineering pipeline that enables this process begins at the telescope. Hubble’s optical assembly delivers diffraction-limited imaging, while instruments such as the Wide Field Camera series convert incoming photons into digital signals using charge-coupled devices. These detectors record both signal and noise components, including read noise, dark current, and transient events from high-energy particles. Raw data are transmitted to ground stations and ingested into processing systems operated by NASA and partner institutions.

Data reduction is the first step toward usable images. Calibration pipelines subtract bias and dark frames, apply flat-field corrections to account for pixel-to-pixel sensitivity variations, and remove known detector artifacts. Multiple exposures are often combined using techniques that reject cosmic rays and improve signal-to-noise ratio. Astrometric solutions align images with celestial coordinate systems, and photometric calibration converts pixel values into physically meaningful flux measurements. The output is a set of science-ready images and associated metadata stored in public archives.

At this point, the bottleneck shifts from data acquisition to interpretation. The scale of the archive means that comprehensive manual analysis by small research teams is impractical. Citizen science platforms address this by distributing small, well-defined tasks to large numbers of participants. Each task is designed to be simple to execute but scientifically meaningful when aggregated. For example, a participant may be asked to indicate whether a galaxy shows a spiral pattern, identify the presence of a bar structure, or mark regions that appear to be merging systems.

From an engineering perspective, the design of these tasks is critical. Interfaces must present images at appropriate scales and contrasts, provide clear instructions, and minimize ambiguity. Backend systems must manage data distribution, ensure that each image is classified multiple times, and aggregate responses into statistically reliable results. Weighting schemes can account for participant consistency, and consensus thresholds are used to determine final classifications. These systems are effectively distributed computing frameworks where the computation is performed by human perception rather than processors.

The statistical treatment of aggregated classifications is central to their scientific value. Individual responses may be noisy or inconsistent, but large sample sizes allow the extraction of robust signals. Methods such as majority voting, Bayesian inference, and confusion matrix analysis are used to quantify uncertainty and correct for systematic biases. The resulting labeled datasets can be directly used in studies of galaxy evolution or employed to train and validate machine learning models.

There is a feedback loop between human and machine analysis. High-quality human-labeled data enable the development of supervised learning algorithms that can process new images at scale. In turn, automated systems can pre-screen data, flagging cases that require human review. This hybrid approach improves overall efficiency and accuracy, particularly as datasets continue to grow with new observatories.

The types of scientific results enabled by this approach are varied. In galaxy morphology studies, large, consistently classified samples allow researchers to quantify the prevalence of structural features as a function of redshift, providing constraints on models of galaxy formation and evolution. In gravitational lensing analyses, human identification of arc-like features can improve the detection of strong lens systems, which are used to probe mass distributions, including dark matter. In time-domain studies, participants can help identify transient events or changes between epochs that automated systems might miss.

The reliability of these results depends on the underlying data quality and calibration, which trace back to Hubble’s engineering. The telescope’s stable pointing, well-characterized optics, and long-term calibration program ensure that images are consistent across time. This consistency is essential when combining classifications from different observations or when training algorithms that assume uniform data properties.

Access to the archive is another enabling factor. Public data policies allow researchers and participants worldwide to retrieve and analyze Hubble observations. Data are accompanied by documentation describing instrument characteristics, calibration procedures, and known limitations. This transparency supports reproducibility and allows independent validation of results derived from citizen science projects.

The involvement of volunteers does not replace professional analysis; it augments it. Researchers design the classification schemes, validate the aggregated outputs, and integrate the results into broader studies. The distributed nature of the work allows coverage of large datasets that would otherwise remain partially analyzed. It also produces labeled datasets that are valuable beyond the initial project, supporting future research and algorithm development.

From a systems standpoint, the process can be summarized as a pipeline: photon collection in orbit, detector conversion to digital signals, ground-based calibration and archiving, distributed human classification, statistical aggregation, and scientific interpretation. Each stage has distinct engineering and scientific requirements, and the overall performance depends on their integration.

The continued utility of Hubble’s archive illustrates the long-term value of well-designed space observatories. Even as newer telescopes expand observational capabilities, the existing dataset remains a resource for new analyses and methodologies. The addition of citizen science extends the effective analytical capacity of the field, converting available human attention into structured data.

In practical terms, participation requires no specialized background because tasks are constrained and validated statistically. The scientific output, however, meets the standards of peer-reviewed research because it is grounded in calibrated data, defined methodologies, and quantified uncertainty. The combination of high-quality observations and distributed analysis has created a model that is now applied across multiple domains in astronomy.

Hubble’s contribution, therefore, is not limited to the images it has captured. It includes the infrastructure—technical and organizational—that allows those images to be transformed into measurements. Citizen scientists are integrated into that infrastructure as a component of the analysis pipeline, providing capabilities that complement automated systems. The result is a scalable approach to extracting information from large astronomical datasets.

Video credit: NASA Goddard