If all goes well, in just a couple of short years humans will return to the moon for the first time in more than half a century.
As NASA prepares to send teams of people to the lunar south pole in December 2024, one of the big questions has been: Where, exactly, will these astronauts land?
Now we have a better idea, with NASA revealing 13 candidate landing regions for Artemis III; the mission that will finally carry that precious human cargo.
“Selecting these regions means we’re one giant step closer to returning humans to the Moon for the first time since Apollo,” says Mark Kirasich of NASA’s Artemis Campaign Development Division.
“When we do, it will be unlike any mission that has come before, as astronauts venture into dark areas previously unexplored by humans and lay the groundwork for future long-term stays.”
Each of the 13 potential landing regions is within 6 degrees of latitude of the lunar south pole, an important target for future exploration. This is a region of the Moon that no one has ever landed on and poses a significantly greater technical challenge than equatorward-based landings. For this reason, two uncrewed stages of the Artemis mission, Artemis I and Artemis II, must be successful before humans can safely launch.
But the lunar south pole will be worth the challenge. Craters in this region are in permanent shadow, forming cold traps that barely exceed -163 degrees Celsius (-260 degrees Fahrenheit). Patches of water ice up to several meters thick are expected to be hidden in the darkness, providing future missions with a valuable resource to study and use.
The potential landing regions of Artemis III. (NASA)
The 13 landing regions, shown on the map above, are about 15 square kilometers (9 miles) and each host a range of possible sites about 200 meters (656 feet) in diameter. Potential landing zones are located near (or even on) a crater rim or ridge, within walking distance of the moon from a permanently shadowed region to ensure astronauts have access in places that may contain water.
“Developing a plan to explore the Solar System means learning how to use the resources we have available while preserving their scientific integrity,” says NASA exploration scientist Jacob Bleacher. “Lunar water ice is valuable from a scientific perspective and also as a resource, because we can extract oxygen and hydrogen from it for fuel and life support systems.”
Each of the landing regions also provides access to sunlight during the six and a half Earth days that the astronauts will be on the Moon. This is vital for uninterrupted supply of solar energy and minimum temperature fluctuations.
The craters currently being targeted are Faustini, Shackleton, de Gerlache, Amundsen, Nobile, Haworth, Malapert and Leibnitz. Further narrowing down the landing regions and locations within them will depend on release dates. These dates will determine flight paths and environmental conditions, making some regions more favorable than others.
Meanwhile, Artemis I is getting ready to launch on August 29, bound for a trip around the Moon and back. This mission is unmanned, but has test dummies on board to collect data on what physical effects future astronauts might experience on their epic journey.