More than half a century after the Apollo program, NASA plans to return humans to lunar soil to conduct exploration. To do so, it has selected nine regions near the Moon’s south pole where the lunar landing of astronauts from the Artemis III mission scheduled for 2026 should take place.
The U.S. space agency created the list after years of scientific studies based on analysis of images taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been mapping and photographing the Moon in high definition since 2009. By 2022, experts had selected 13 regions, but the list has been further reduced and updated.
Currently, NASA has included in its mission goals an area near the lunar crater called Cabeus B, Haworth crater, the Malapert crater massif, Mount Mouton including its plateau, two areas along the rim of Noble crater, the rim of Gerlache crater and the Slater plain.
These regions were chosen by experts based on precise requirements regarding the safety of the lunar landing, the lighting conditions of the site, and the possibility of being able to communicate with Earth. In addition, these are sites that are interesting from a geological point of view and that the U.S. agency has an interest in studying. As Sarah Noble, Artemis chief science officer at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C., points out, “The South Pole of the Moon is a completely different environment than the one we landed at during the Apollo missions: it offers access to some of the oldest soils on the Moon, as well as cold, shaded regions that may contain water and other compounds. Each of these landing regions will allow us to do extraordinary science and new discoveries.”
Regarding the fine-tuning of the map, NASA disclosed that data will be collected in the coming months to continue to map the nine zones more precisely and assess the regional geology for possible landing sites. The international scientific community will be involved in this effort.
