A historic private moon mission launches early on Monday (Jan. 8), and flying aboard will be five tiny robots developed in collaboration by a team of 250 university students in Mexico.

Rethink the Mars Program

NASA’s robotic Mars exploration program is in crisis. A recent review of the plan of its flagship Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission pegged its cost at $10 billion, a price tag that threatens to preclude funding any other exploration missions to the Red Planet for the next decade and a half.