The plans to conquer the Moon continue. And while NASA continues to prepare what will be the first manned lunar landing in more than 50 years, the space agency has updated the possible regions to nine, all near the south pole, for the next landing of the Artemis III mission. The nine selected areas will now be studied in more depth by both scientists and engineers, although without giving up the search for other suitable points for the historic return of human beings to our satellite.
«Artemis will return humanity to the Moon – says Lakiesha Hawkins, deputy administrator of the Moon to Mars Program Office – and will visit unexplored areas. “NASA’s selection of these regions demonstrates our commitment to landing crews safely near the lunar South Pole, where they will help make new scientific discoveries while learning how to live there.”
Nine possible destinations
The new list of candidate sites for Artemis III, in no order of priority, are as follows: the Peak near Cabeus B; the Malapert massif; the Mount Mouton Plateau; Mount Mouton itself; Rim 1 and 2 edges; the Gerlache edge 2; and Slater Plain.
The chosen regions have different geological characteristics and offer different possibilities to the mission. Until now, the Moon’s South Pole has never been explored by a manned mission and is especially interesting because it contains permanently shadowed areas that can preserve valuable resources such as water.
«The South Pole of the Moon – explains Sarah Noble, director of Artemis Lunar Science at NASA headquarters in Washington – is a completely different environment than the place where we landed during the Apollo missions. It offers access to some of the oldest terrain on the Moon, as well as cold, shadowy regions that may contain water and other compounds. Any of these landing regions will allow us to make amazing science and new discoveries.”
Security, resources and scientific potential
To select the nine possible landing zones, a multidisciplinary team of scientists and engineers analyzed the lunar South Pole using data from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and a vast body of lunar scientific research. The factors that most influenced the selection included the scientific potential of each area, its availability as a launch window, the suitability of the terrain, communication capabilities with Earth and lighting conditions.
Additionally, the team also took into account the combined trajectory capabilities of NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket, Orion spacecraft, and Starship HLS (Human Landing System) to ensure safe and accessible landing sites.
For its part, the Artemis III geology team evaluated the landing regions taking into account their scientific value. Each of the nine selected regions has the potential to provide key new insights into rocky planet formation, lunar resources, and the history of our Solar System.
“Artemis III will be the first time astronauts have landed in the south polar region of the Moon,” says Jacob Bleacher, NASA’s chief exploration scientist. They will fly in a new lander to terrain that is unique to our past Apollo experience. Finding the right places for that historic moment begins with identifying safe places for this first landing, and then trying to combine them with opportunities for science.
NASA’s evaluation team will also draw on the scientific community to collect data, construct geological maps and evaluate the regional geology of potential landing sites. The agency will select sites within the regions for Artemis III after the mission’s potential launch dates are decided, which will dictate transfer trajectories (or orbital paths) and surface environmental conditions.
#NASA #selects #locations #human #missions #Moon
