Artemis I just got back from the Moon, the International Space Station crew are dealing with a busted Soyuz, SpaceX is making incredible progress with their Starship architecture, CubeSats are being flung all over the solar system, and it seems like every month a new company is unveiling their own commercially-developed launch vehicle.

The briefcase-sized spacecraft was launched aboard a special “rideshare” flight of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket back on December 11th — tagging along with two other craft heading to our nearest celestial neighbor, the Japanese Hakuto-R lander, and a small rover developed by the United Arab Emirates.

But while the Apollo missions only saw astronauts make short jaunts to the lunar surface, the Artemis program promises to establish a long-term human presence on and around the Moon.

An accurate map of these ice deposits, once confirmed by a subsequent robotic mission, will almost certainly influence the decision making process when it comes time to establish the location for humanity’s first lunar outpost.

The beams will illuminate a 35 m (115 ft) spot of the lunar surface, with the reflected light being collected by a mirror and directed into a indium gallium arsenide (InGaAs) photodetector.

Though the reason has yet to be determined, NASA says that ground controllers are currently operating on the assumption that something is clogging the propellant lines of the spacecraft, and that running the thrusters for longer may clear up the blockage.